Via The Wrap:
Days away from the wide release of “Selma,” a controversy around the film is gaining steam as historians take issue with its depiction of president Lyndon B. Johnson clashing with Martin Luther King, Jr. over voting rights.
In a lengthy New York Times story about historians taking issue with the movie, Diane McWhorter, the author of “Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution,”argued Thursday that the movie is not truthful in depicting LBJ (played by Tom Wilkinson) fighting King on staging protests in Selma.
“Everybody has to take license in movies like this, and it can be hard for nit-pickers like me to suspend nit-picking,” she told The Times. “But with the portrayal of L.B.J., I kept thinking, ‘Not only is this not true, it’s the opposite of the truth.’”