--- title: Martin Luther King Jr. on His Relationship with Lyndon Johnson description: In a 1964 essay in LIFE, Martin Luther King Jr. offered his perspective on his partner inside the White House. canonical: https://time.com/3654086/mlk-lbj-selma-debate/ author: Eliza Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-06T15:18:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:06:25.572Z og:title: What Martin Luther King Really Thought About Lyndon Baines Johnson og:description: In a 1964 essay in LIFE, Martin Luther King Jr. offered his perspective on his partner inside the White House. og:url: https://time.com/3654086/mlk-lbj-selma-debate/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5bf03c99d95612bc/69877820cd68481a13098e9e/150105-mlk-lbj.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Martin Luther King and President Lyndon Johnson og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Martin Luther King Really Thought About Lyndon Baines Johnson twitter:description: In a 1964 essay in LIFE, Martin Luther King Jr. offered his perspective on his partner inside the White House. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5bf03c99d95612bc/69877820cd68481a13098e9e/150105-mlk-lbj.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Martin Luther King Really Thought About Lyndon Baines Johnson  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Jan 6, 2015 3:18 PM UTC  Caption from LIFE. Dr. King, who knew Johnson before Presidency, visited the White House in the first month after Johnson took office. Caption from LIFE. Dr. King, who knew Johnson before Presidency, visited the White House in the first month after Johnson took office.Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Jan 6, 2015 3:18 PM UTC The release of _Selma_, the drama detailing the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Albama, has unleashed its own drama with critics charging that director Ava DuVernay’s film unfairly depicts President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s actions during that period. Less than a year before the marches, King published an article in LIFE outlining the contours of his complicated relationship with the president. A few days before the film’s release, Mark K. Updegrove, director of the L.B.J. Presidential Library and Museum, [wrote in Politico](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/what-selma-gets-wrong-113743.html#ixzz3NyLiOmsh) that the film’s version of Johnson “flies in the face of history.” One of the movie’s central tensions—indeed, the driving force behind the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s decision to march—is Johnson’s reluctance to prioritize voting rights legislation over his War on Poverty. In reality, these critics say, Johnson was a much more willing partner than the movie leads viewers to believe. “In truth,” Updegrove wrote, “the partnership between LBJ and MLK on civil rights is one of the most productive and consequential in American history.” Joseph A. Califano Jr., who served as Johnson’s top aide for domestic affairs, further stoked the fire, writing [in the Washington _Post_](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-movie-selma-has-a-glaring-historical-inaccuracy/2014/12/26/70ad3ea2-8aa4-11e4-a085-34e9b9f09a58%5Fstory.html), “Johnson was enthusiastic about voting rights and the president urged King to find a place like Selma and lead a major demonstration.” He added that the march was Johnson’s idea, a suggestion DuVernay [took to Twitter](https://twitter.com/avaetc/status/549235495222272000) to call “jaw dropping and offensive to SNCC \[the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee\], SCLC and black citizens who made it so.” The [May 15, 1964 issue of LIFE](http://books.google.com/books?id=nkEEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=twopage&q&f=false) featured an excerpt from King’s then soon-to-be-published book _Why We Can’t Wait_ (an expanded version of his famed [“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”](http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles%5FGen/Letter%5FBirmingham.html)). Of Johnson, King wrote about the benefits of getting to know him while he was John F. Kennedy’s Vice President: --- > “” --- King went on to praise Johnson’s grasp of the complexity of the problems, as well as the strength of his resolve to address them, though he added that he wouldn’t hesitate to escalate the pressure if Johnson veered off-course: --- > “” --- Those views, designed for public consumption and no doubt political in nature, provide a window into the relationship of two men who helped enact one of the most significant changes to come out of the Civil Rights movement.  Caption from LIFE. Dr. King, who knew Johnson before Presidency, visited the White House in the first month after Johnson took office. Stan Wayman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3654086/mlk-lbj-selma-debate/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3654086/mlk-lbj-selma-debate/"},"headline":"What Martin Luther King Really Thought About Lyndon Baines Johnson","datePublished":"2015-01-06T15:18:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:06:25.572Z","description":"The release of Selma has sparked controversy about the former President's role in the Civil Rights movement. 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