Was Lyndon B. Johnson a civil rights mastermind, or a reluctant follower pulled along by activists led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?

The question has long been a matter of contention, even flaring up in the 2008 presidential primary battle between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

And now, it has also come to another hard-fought political campaign, the Oscar race, once again raising the fraught question of who makes history — and who gets to write it.