NAACP Praises Byrd
In the end, the political legacy of Robert Byrd went from admitting his former membership in the Ku Klux Klan to winning the accolades of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
For the 2003–2004
session of Congress, Byrd was one of only 16 Senators rated by the NAACP as being 100% in line with the group’s position on critical legislation.
In June 2005, Byrd sponsored a successful bill dedicating an additional $10,000,000 in federal funding for the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C., remarking that “With the passage of time, we have come to learn that his Dream was the American Dream, and few ever expressed it more eloquently.”
When Byrd died at age 92 on June 28, 2010, the NAACP released a statement saying that over the course of his life he “became a champion for civil rights and liberties” and “came to consistently support the NAACP civil rights agenda.”