'The Butler' film offers a lesson in civil rights history

As I was watching "The Butler" in a packed theater on a Sunday with perfect weather, my thoughts also remembered the March on Washington over a half century ago and the gathering that would take place a few days later to commemorate and celebrate the historic event. It was as if "The Butler" offered a lesson in civil rights history in its own way.

While this movie featured Forest Whitaker portraying the real-life White House butler Eugene Allen, the film also dealt with civil rights over the span of eight U.S. presidents. But the one thing that bothered me is that they left out any mention of the assassination of Medgar Wiley Evers on June 12, 1963, which was only a couple of months prior to the March on Washington. It left me wondering how such a civil rights pioneer and the legacy he left behind didn't even become b-roll, or file footage, in the film. On the other hand, the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November of that same year couldn't be skipped, as he was one the eight presidents in the movie that Allen, the real-life butler, served under during his days in the White House offices, hallways and kitchen.

The assassination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, was certainly handled in a very emotional way in the film, he was one the eight presidents in the movie that Allen, the real-life butler, served under during his days in the White House and was portrayed as a friend of the civil rights movement who was instrumental in the implementation of the Voting Rights Act. But Kennedy didn't get a chance to sign the legislation into law before his assassination. After the funeral, Whitaker, playing the role of Allen as Cecil Gaines, was presented with a tie from Jackie Kennedy that President Kennedy had worn.

The actual signing of the Voting Rights Act was left to President Lyndon B. Johnson on Aug. 6, 1965, who was featured in "The Butler" as a rather flamboyant President who in one particuar scene, was in the bathroom, seated, doing you know what, with the door open and issuing orders to his White House staff and the ever-present butler standing just outside the door.

"The Butler" movie also had in-depth acknowledgement of The Black Panthers and the Freedom Riders, of which the Butler's own son got involved in a big way, as the Butler tried to "hear nothing and see nothing" while White House discussions and TV new reports of all the racial unrest was all around him.

When I thought about all the Presidents in "The Butler," which included Presidents Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, the biggest surprise was the latter – President Reagan. Although Reagan was portrayed as being opposed to sanctions against South Africa, he was shown in the film slipping money to the butler to send to people that requested financial help from the White House. If this is historically accurate, maybe Reagan had a soft side that many people didn't know about.

According to the film, the butler left his job after an invitation to a White House dinner that just bothered him too much, although his wife, Gloria, played by Oprah Winfrey, had a grand ole "wide-eyed" time. After leaving the White House in 1986, after a 34-year career, the butler went on to reunite with his son, the Freedom Rider, Black Panther member and all-around civil rights activist, and even got himself thrown in jail for a while.

As the butler grew old and feeble, he did get a chance to witness the election President Barack Obama in 2008, a moment in history that he thought he would never get a chance to see. In one unforgettable scene, the butler put on Kennedy's tie and shuffled down the hallway of the White House one last time to visit President Obama. He told the young man who was to escort him to the presidential office – "I know the way." The butler died in 2010 at 90.

If you have an interest in civil rights and want to extend your knowledge further, you might even pick up a few additional milestones and historical facts from this film. It is a refresher course of what life was like during a very challenging era of this country's history that included racial unrest, school integration, protests, lunch counter sit-ins, riots and wars on foreign soil.

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