Robert Byrd: KKK Says Late Senator 'Wasn't A Klansman Long Enough To Get His Sheet Broke In'

In the wake of the passing of Sen. Robert Byrd, the Ku Klux Klan, an organization Byrd briefly belonged to, is coming to the defense of the West Virginia Democrat who served in the Senate for 51 years.

The Daily Caller reports:

As politicians and columnists across the country debate the life and legacy of the late Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginian's membership in the Ku Klux Klan has been a sticking point for many. Today's KKK, though, says Byrd did nothing to warrant such ire.

"He wasn't a Klansman long enough to get his sheet broke in," said Travis Pierce, national membership director for the Ku Klux Klan, LLC, one of several groups that uses the KKK name. "It's much ado about nothing."

The late Byrd knew that his one-time association with the Klan would remain a part of his life -- even after death: "It will be in every obit," he predicted.

Politico's David Rogers reports:

By Byrd's account, opposing civil rights legislation in the '60s was his greatest legislative mistake, and he would say his eyes were opened later upon seeing a father unable to get water for his young son when the "colored" drinking fountain wasn't working. In his later years, he struggled to make amends and getting money to help finish the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial became a passion. And Byrd's famously close relationship with his black Senate driver, Jim Allen, was part of this transition.

"It's impossible for anyone to try to whitewash the KKK and its overall symbolism," said Ken Hechler, a former Democratic congressman from Byrd's home state. "But at the same time... we honor those people who publicly admit the error of their ways."

Comments

[sydneymoon]

03:02 PM on 07/06/2010

pezmusic said
"Mahr gets a pass for doing the same thing Rush does...."

________________________

By other people you mean? Certainly not by me.

[sydneymoon]

02:19 PM on 07/06/2010

pezmusic said
"You do realize that Mr. Snerdley is African American?
Walter Williams is guest host.

Rush does is political satire......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_satire "
____________________________________

Satire doesn't excuse Limbaugh's bigotry nor his misogyny.

[pezmusic]

02:25 PM on 07/06/2010

That is what it, its showing how absurd something is by over the top absurdity.

[sydneymoon]

02:47 PM on 07/06/2010

Sorry I'm not biting. Limbaugh's BS comes from a dark, dark place and manages to expose what he is repeatedly. He is a bigot and a misogynist.

[VoteThemAllOut]

12:54 PM on 07/06/2010

After reading the conflicting comments on his affiliation with the KKK, I became interested in something other than support or 'put-downs' of the man. Here is what I found at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd#Ku_Klux_Klan

"In the early 1940s, Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to create a new chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

According to Byrd, a Klan official told him, "You have a talent for leadership, Bob ... The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation." Byrd later recalled, "suddenly lights flashed in my mind! Someone important had recognized my abilities! I was only 23 or 24 years old, and the thought of a political career had never really hit me. But strike me that night, it did."[10] Byrd held the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops.[10] When it came time to elect the "Exalted Cyclops," the top officer in the local Klan unit, Byrd won unanimously.[10]

In 1944, Byrd wrote to segregationist Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo:

“ I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side ... Rather I should die a thousand times, ... than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds. ”

However, ... in 1952, he announced "After about a year, I became disinterested, quit paying my dues, and dropped my membership in the organization.

[pezmusic]

01:50 PM on 07/06/2010

1952 was when another Democrat exposed him.

[pezmusic]

01:45 PM on 07/07/2010

1944 the IRS put a lien the KKK for $600,000.
The group closed as a result from 1944 to 1946.
There was no way Byrd could send in dues.

[angrymanspokane]

11:17 AM on 07/06/2010

I wouldn't call 9 years in the Klan "brief". He was a bigot when bigotry was cool, and changed his tune when racism was no longer politically correct. He apologized of course, but what else would you expect from a career politician. They all apologize when they get caught.

[pezmusic]

01:23 PM on 07/06/2010

Klansman is more than a bigot.
Vocally being a hate monger in public till 1968.
His hate continued another 15 or years.

[BolaMuyis]

10:53 AM on 07/06/2010

Senator Byrd, as an African American I salute you. I respect that you took a position saw the error in it and decided to do a 180 degree turn and go the other way. People make erroneous decisions all the time but it takes a real trooper to admit their wrong and make amends the best they can. Rest in peace sir.

[Harvey Manfrangensonton]

11:17 AM on 07/06/2010

you have been duped. He was a lifelong racist. Just watch the two occasions he used the N word on national tv 5 years ago.

[Lisette53]

10:32 AM on 07/06/2010

[1010TRAVIS]

10:32 AM on 07/06/2010

The man was a grand kleagle. Look it up

[berryessence]

12:52 AM on 07/06/2010

I have seen the films of Byrd from the 60's and he was outlandish....my mother was the secretary for NAACP Birmingham Chapter (one of the secretaries who actually typed the "orders" for the prestigious voter rights march).

But, BYRD was advocate for MLK to be a National Holiday AND push for the MLK memorial.

I forgive his past, I like what he wanted for the future!

[Vernon Brown]

12:26 AM on 07/06/2010

I'm glad republicans finally care about deficits and racism

[pezmusic]

02:21 PM on 07/06/2010

Lets see
The last 3 times the budget was balanced.....
Republicans controlled Congress.
Last time Democrats in Congress balanced a budget??
Too long ago for me to remember. (age 46)

Republican who care about racism.......
its only been since 1856

[chill4asec]

11:16 PM on 07/05/2010

You can analyze, minimize, postulate, whatever you hearts desire. But the fact is....the man wrote his own eulogy. The life he lived, literally speaks for itself. Like the character Forest Gump, his life followed (and sometimes led) the path of American politics for almost a century. More than any other figure, his life shows the growing pains of our great nation.

I'm proud he was my Senator. My earliest memories of politics were the days years ago when one of his political rivals stuck a flyer in our door in Southern WV. The flyer had a caricature of Senator Byrd wearing a Klan'smens hood. I was too young to know what it meant, but being a young African American child in Southern WV, I figured that it couldn't be good. I remember asking my Dad about it...and what he said to me has been true almost my entire life.

He said.."Senator Byrd is a Coal Miners best friend." Then threw the paper away.

So take it from my Pop's, a black man from Southern WV. A coal miner and preacher who raised 10 kids, made sure they were all baptized, and had a decent education.

Didn't mean to get all weepy on you. But I'm proud to be from WV and I'm damn proud of my Senator, the late Robert C. Byrd.

[pezmusic]

11:49 PM on 07/05/2010

I'm sure if your a coal miner he was your best friend.

[pezmusic]

12:17 AM on 07/06/2010

How old were you and your dad when this happened?

[chill4asec]

12:36 AM on 07/06/2010

Geez! Maybe 9 or 10. This would have been in the early 70's. Pops would've been in his 50's I guess.

[kwoodberryesq]

11:06 PM on 07/05/2010

Well, that makes him no worse than Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Palin, Paul and those types of characters. OH MY, PLEASE FORGIVE ME SENATOR FOR EQUATING YOU WITH THOSE LOW LIFES!

[pezmusic]

11:33 PM on 07/05/2010

None of those people now or in the past have been white supremacist in KKK.
Its laughable.

[steamboars]

12:23 PM on 07/06/2010

Membership in the Klan is not required to be an outright bigot, of which the people that were mentioned, most certainly are bigots.

[Eva Adams]

05:41 AM on 07/06/2010

The major difference between Senator Byrd and those you mentioned is that he changed, he recognized his mistakes, he grew wiser and more compassionate. None of them EVER will because they all adamantly oppose progression of any means.

[pezmusic]

01:11 PM on 07/06/2010

So are equating disagreement on a progressive agenda as = to racism?

[BIG JOHN]

09:44 PM on 07/05/2010

But he was one. Enough said.

[berryessence]

01:08 AM on 07/06/2010

Governor Wallace of Alabama (the ole film that said "segregation now and segregation forever")

But yet he won the entire support of Black people in 1980 to be governor. Before he died he invited MLK children "broke bread" and asked for his forgiveness...

PEOPLE CAN CHANGE........ Enough said

[steamboars]

12:24 PM on 07/06/2010

George W. Bush was a coke snorting alcoholic. Does that mean he never changed, either? Or are Republicans the only ones allowed to change?

[pezmusic]

01:12 PM on 07/06/2010

You do know that the coke use claims were unfounded.
There first hand source.

[gnomic]

07:47 PM on 07/05/2010

None are without sin. Byrd asked for forgiveness and acted true to his beliefs once he did so. Let us speak well of him as he was a good servant of his state.

[GenosseJoe]

09:15 PM on 07/05/2010

Sure, everybody was in KKK.

Are you joking?

[winstonian22]

02:00 AM on 07/06/2010

The unspoken tag that comes at the end of your post and all these posts:

(We'll forgive anyone for anything...as long as they are liberals.)

[pezmusic]

01:25 PM on 07/06/2010

Seems to be the case

[steamboars]

04:35 PM on 07/06/2010

Hardly. The problem with making an apples to apples comparison with a GOBP'er, is that GOBP'ers don't ever see the errors of their ways, and hold onto their racism and hate until their last breath.

[Harvey Manfrangensonton]

05:33 PM on 07/05/2010

Regarding president Truman's initiative to integrate the Armed Forces, Byrd (in his 30s at the time) said he would never fight "with a negro by my side. Rather, I should die 1,000 times than to see this beloved land become degraded by race mongrels."

[pezmusic]

05:47 PM on 07/05/2010

Byrd did not serve in WWII.

[JohnBryansFontaine]

06:27 PM on 07/05/2010

Back then, Byrd was a far-right segregationist, like most Conservatives at the time. And Truman was a Democrat.

[pezmusic]

08:13 PM on 07/05/2010

Actually when Byrd said I will not serve (1944) the Army was segregated and no one yet seriously talking desegregation yet.
African American troops were moving into combat.
This quote in context refers to ANY blacks in the military at all.
Look who he was writing to..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Bilbo

Bilbo proposed an amendment to the federal work-relief bill on June 6, 1938, proposing to deport 12 million black Americans to Liberia at federal expense to relieve unemployment.

Bilbo was re-elected to a third Senate term in November 1946, but the newly-elected Republican majority in the United States Senate refused to seat Bilbo for the term because he was suspected of openly inciting violence against blacks who wanted to vote and a committee found that he had taken bribes.

He had no problem talking about KKK membership on Meet the Press. (NBC radio)

Byrd and Bilbo were not just segregationists.
They were into White Supremacy.

[Harvey Manfrangensonton]

11:34 PM on 07/05/2010

Byrd was a Democrat, like all segregationists.

[ImBradPitt]

04:33 PM on 07/05/2010

Try and gloss over it al you want but it is what it is.

He was a Klansman that spoke the same garbage they spoke.

It's not made up.

No on can ever accuse of of robbing a bank or blowing up a building. The reason why they can't? BECAUSE I'VE NEVER DONE IT.

He knew what he was doing and knew who and what the Klan were.

That should be mentioned becasue that was a part of him. A part of a terrorist group in America that still lives on to this day.

Too bad America has never had a "war of American terrorist".

[pezmusic]

05:07 PM on 07/05/2010

Actually there had been more than one.
Ist Klan 1866 to 1871
The Anti Klan act under ended the first KKK under President Grant.
2nd KKK was 1915 to 1944.
There were anti lynching laws passed and IRS used tax code to put them out of business 1944.
Then was 3rd KKK started 1946.
The FBI did go after them in the 1960s.
They were sued out business 1990s.
They back as a LLC now.
Unfortunately hate seems to be something that can be suppressed but not done away with.

[berryessence]

01:10 AM on 07/06/2010

uummm are you forgetting Timoth McVeigh?

"war of American terrorist"