Senator Robert Byrd and the Ku Klux Klan
In interviews with
The Wall Street Journal and
Slate magazine in 2002 and 2008, Byrd called joining the Klan “the greatest mistake I ever made.” To young people interested in becoming involved in politics, Byrd warned,
“Be sure you avoid the Ku Klux Klan. Don't get that albatross around your neck. Once you've made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena.”
In his autobiography, Byrd wrote that he had become a KKK member because he
“was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision—a jejune and immature outlook—seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions. ... I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened … it has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me and has taught me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one’s life, career, and reputation.”
But while he voted against civil rights legislation, Byrd also hired one of the first Black congressional aides on Capitol Hill in 1959 and initiated the racial integration of the United States Capitol Police for the first time since
Reconstruction.
Decades later, Byrd would speak with regret about his earlier stances on race. In 1993, Byrd told CNN that he wished he hadn't filibustered and voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and would take them back if he could.
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). The group rated the senator's voting record as being 100% in line with their positions during the 203-2004 congressional session.
In June 2005, Byrd sponsored a bill allocating an additional $10 million in federal funds for the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C.
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.”
How Sen. Robert Byrd went from being a member of the KKK to being the longest-serving member of the US Senate and winning the praise of the NAACP.
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Now shut up about Robert Byrd MAGAS because YOU are todays KKK.