Historian, physicist, and Academic Questions author David Kaiser writes for TIME Magazine on why the newly-released film Selma errs in its depiction of Lyndon Johnson and his involvement in passing the Voting Rights Act. The film, which focuses on Martin Luther King Jr.’s push for voting rights, is based on blatant distortion of facts and in particular misconstrues exchanges between King and Johnson. Such misconstruing of historical facts “contributes to a popular but mistaken view of how progress in the United States can occur,” writes Kaiser. Selma both perverts the achievements of the civil rights movement and perpetuates racial misunderstandings, according to Kaiser. Kaiser’s forthcoming piece in AQ, written from the perspective of a “New Deal Democrat,” focuses on why the left’s teaching of history is leading students astray. The article, “How Postmodern Historians Have Helped Cripple the American Left,” will be published in the next issue of NAS’s journal.
Image: The New York Review of Books
