Heston Clarifies Civil Rights Credentials

You ran two letters questioning my credentials in the civil rights movement and my view that affirmative action has been a failure (“Heston Needs a History Lesson in Black and White,” Calendar, Sept. 23). I can only say that I was there, from ’61 through the passage of the civil rights bill in ’65. The two men who wrote you, it seems, were not.

That bill had no hint of quotas, preferential hiring or set-asides in government, colleges or the workplace. I’m convinced such damaging ideas were never part of Dr. King’s plan. The burgeoning tree of affirmative action, its boughs bending with preferential privilege and reverse discrimination, were imposed by the Johnson Administration in the next four years. Along with prominent black leaders in Congress, the Supreme Court and every area of American life, I’m convinced it was a grievous error, deeply harming the very people it was meant to help.

CHARLTON HESTON

Los Angeles