If Heston was racist he sure had an odd way of showing it. The following are two quotes from his autobiography, concerning the civil rights movement and King’s March on Washington:
*Many men who knew him better than I have written about Martin Luther King. I can’t match their eloquence; I can confrm what they’ve written: he was a special man, put on earth, I do believe, to be a twentieth-century Moses for his people. Over coffee and toast in his hotel, he was very quiet. Passionately quiet.
“You tell me, Mr Heston, that there are no black on Holloywood film crews… As president of the Screen Actors Guild, what can you do about that?”
“I’m afraid no much, sir,” I said. “Our guild has always welcomed black actors, but I must tell you the technical unions not onlywon’t accept black members, they wouldn’t accept me, or anyon who isn’t the son of a member. I’m glad to speak for SAG at the interguild conference you’ve called with the studios, but I don’t believe you have much of a chance with IATSE.”
I was dead wron. At the conference that afternoon, D. King talked them around . They agreed to eliminate the family rule and accept black apprentices. Amazingly they also began to take in non-family whites and women, which waasn’t even on Dr. King’s agenda. He was an awesomely persuasive man, even unintentionally.*
Would a racist speak with that kind of respect? And then there’s the second quote. After speaking about organizing the support of prominent actors to particpate in the march(during which he speaks of a lot of liberals that wouldn’t show) he talked about standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial:
For the rest of that shining time, we walked behind Dr. King, and stood on the steps of the Lincol Memorial to hear him say, yet again, “I have a dream…” We were essentially extras in the event that validated that dream, but we were there. In a long life of activisn in support of some good cause, I’m proudest of having stood in the sun behind that man, that morning.