In "Fight the Power", Chuck D of Public Enemy accuses Elvis of being racist. I can only assume this is due to the persistent rumor that Elvis said something to the effect of "the only thing a Negro can do for me is shine my shoes." This has been a rumor about him since 1957, and is, to the best of my knowledge, completely false. In fact, Elvis, during that very year, a time when he was not giving interviews to others, and really did not have a large black fan base, called up Jet Magazine to explicitly refute this allegation (apparently another magazine reported that an unnamed person overheard Elvis say this. Talk about shoddy evidence . . .). The black people who had known him his whole life and who performed with him defended him, saying that "Elvis would face you as a man" and said that they could not imagine him ever saying something like that.