Posted on 06/28/2019 8:51:47 PM PDT by conservative98
Claim A photograph shared on social media in June 2019 showed former Vice President Joe Biden with the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
Rating
Mostly False About this rating What's True The 2008 photograph shows Biden with Robert Byrd, a West Virginia senator who was during the 1940s a member and organizer for the Ku Klux Klan.
What's False Byrd was never "Grand Wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan
(Excerpt) Read more at snopes.com ...
You mean Democrat Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd? Who twice used the N-word on the US Senate floor in the 21st century?
Right. I am sure the left would do the same thing if it was Donald Trump or Don Junior. </S>
“They’re getting hoisted on their own petard.”
No they aren’t. The current crop of Democrats are Marxists who thrive on race baiting and they are better at it than you will ever be.
They are perfectly happy seeing Democrats of earlier days labelled as racists. Because they apply that to all of older America. All you are doing is helping them.
I lived in the Jim Crow South ... where the KKK was ‘for real’ and to a person they were democrats and STAYED democrats after the civil rights movement. Only Lester Maddox switched. The rest of the racists went from “blacks can do no right” to “blacks can do no wrong”... Both positions are racist.
Name a few...
“Anyone who supports Planned Parenthood may as well be in the Klan.”
Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was a bigwig in the Tucson Republican Women’s Club, so there’s that bit of inconvenient history.
> And Hillary’s mentor. <
Something just occurred to me. Wouldn’t this have been a great question during the 2016 presidential debates:
“Secretary Clinton, were you aware that your friend and mentor, Senator Robert Byrd, was an Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan?”
I know, I’m dreaming. The hand-picked liberals who ran those debates would never have allowed such a question.
Well let’s see if you are equally balanced in your comment on this Republican Governor
https://www.in.gov/library/2848.htm
Ku Klux Klan in Indiana
The Ku Klux Klan rose to prominence in Indiana politics and society after World War I. It was made up of native-born, white Protestants of many income and social levels. In the changing world of the 1920s, the group was against Catholics, Jews, African-Americans, immorality, and drinking. Nationally, Indiana was said to have the most powerful Ku Klux Klan. Though it counted a high number of members statewide, its importance peaked in the 1924 election of Edward Jackson for governor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_L._Jackson
Edward L. Jackson (December 27, 1873 – November 18, 1954) was an American attorney, judge and politician, elected the 32nd Governor of the U.S. state of Indiana from January 12, 1925, to January 14, 1929. He had also been elected as Secretary of State of Indiana.
Jackson associated with Ku Klux Klan leaders, and became involved in several political scandals. He was accused of favoring the Klan’s agenda while in office. In 1927 he was investigated and tried on bribery charges related to having tried to bribe the previous governor, but was not convicted. The statute of limitations had expired. After finishing his term in office, he left in disgrace and never ran again for public office.
And there’s a young Joe Manchin standing behind Sheets Byrd.
It has nothing to do with “high road” or “their rules”.
It has to do with helping the hard Left promote the idea that America is and has always been fundamentally racist. Marxists are always happy to have people play useful idiot for them. It used to be that they could only count on liberals to be that foolish. Apparently they are now even luckier.
Swish~
Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan both openly opposed the 1964 Civil Rights bill. Virtually every conservative who wrote for Buckley’s National Review at the time also opposed it. So are they racists in your book? The liberal Rockefeller Republicans are the ones who joined Lyndon Johnson to pass it. Your heroes?
That’s not really “Snopes” is it? They rated it “mostly false” because they got Byrd’s rank title in KKK wrong?
Why wouldn’t it be comsidered “Mostly True”? Anyhoo, not my clowns, not my circus.
Did mommy help you write that?
> He was accused of favoring the Klan’s agenda while in office. <
I don’t care if Jackson was a Republican. If Jackson pursued - or even condoned - a policy of terror against blacks, like Byrd he can go to hell.
By the way, I try to judge a person within the context of his times. The world of 1924 was different than the world of today.
But the world of 1924 was also different than the world of 1865. A Klan supporter in 1865 I might cut some slack. He’s a product of his times. A Klan supporter in 1924 (Jackson) or in 1940 (Byrd) gets much less consideration from me.
https://www.nprillinois.org/post/history-1920s-saw-kkks-rise-illinois#stream/0
The second-generation Klan was a self-proclaimed morality police, according to the book, The Ku Klux Klan in American Politics. It was reacting to repercussions from World War I and Prohibition, including wariness of immigrants and what it saw as looser morals represented by speakeasies, bootlegging and, ironically, political corruption.
The Klan said it stood for “America.” Anything that wasn’t red, white, and blue — with an emphasis on “white,” was wrong. For the Klan, that was a long list:
“African-Americans, Catholics, immigrants, and Jews. We support Protestants, whites, Prohibition… and law and order.”
A Chicago Klan newspaper called, “Dawn: A Journal for True American Patriots,“ encouraged members to recommend candidates and run for office.
The June sixth, 1923 Rockford paper, the Republic, reported:
“The klan is said to have been active in Springfield elections since last fall, supporting candidates backed by (Republican) Governor Len Small.”
Tension over the Klan’s involvement with Illinois government peaked that year. Chicago Representative Thomas J. O’Grady, a Democrat, requested an investigation into Statehouse employees’ Klan membership.
That same day, O’Grady was arrested in Springfield under false pretenses and roughed up, reported the Rockford paper.
His Statehouse investigation went nowhere, but its proposal caused aftershocks.
“Alarm has spread through the state capitol since Representative Thomas O’Grady announced he would seek to turn the spotlight on the state pay roll to search out klan members…If membership in the klan is going to jeopardize their jobs, many of the plum gatherers probably will be ready to sell their robes and masks.”
That was the January twentieth, 1923 Chicago Daily Tribune. It listed several avowed or alleged Klansmen on the state payroll.
Yet, the group grew bolder. That May, the KKK held a huge initiation at the state fairgrounds in Springfield. The Illinois House of Representatives held hearings to find out who authorized the bash, which lasted until 4 a.m.
The KKK reacted swiftly. A former Springfield Klan official was going to name names and spill secrets, but the Klan had his testimony barred, reported the June sixth, 1923 Illinois State Register. Some members were still outed…
“…including the assistant secretary of the Senate.”
All of the witnesses, including Governor Small, said they had no idea who okayed the massive Klan initiation. Small even claimed he didn’t have the authority to okay it.
The committee grilled the fairground custodian, decided he was to blame, and had him fired.
But the Klan didn‘t stop. The next year it held another mass rally in Springfield. Klansmen marched from the Statehouse to the fairgrounds, where they lighted crosses, had a parade, gave speeches, and shot off fireworks.
“A couple weeks later, at a Klan rally in the Chicago armory, sample ballots were distributed with Small’s name marked for governor, according to the book, Len Small: Governors and Gangsters. “
Small was re-elected in 1925, but his popularity, like the Klan’s, was running out. By this time, the KKK had largely disappeared from Chicago, thanks to the American Unity League. The Encyclopedia of Chicago says it outed city Klansmen by printing their “names, addresses, and occupations.”
https://daily.jstor.org/history-kkk-american-politics/
As W. E. B. Du Bois reminds us, political activism was a key goal of this KKK. The historian David Chalmers, author of Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan, has called the 1920s Klan a “great fraternal lodge” with “nationwide political power.” The Illinois Klan newspaper, Dawn: A Journal for True American Patriots, encouraged members to recommend and become candidates for office to accomplish their aims.
Illinois was a prime example. Its governor, Len Small, was elected with help from the Klan, which was allowed to use the state fairgrounds in the capital at least twice for large-scale events, including an initiation of thousands of new members. “We know we’re the balance of power in the state,” proclaimed Charles G. Palmer, an attorney and “grand dragon of the Illinois Ku Klux Klan,” in the October 24, 1924, Chicago Daily Tribune. According to Palmer, the Klan controlled elections and could get whatever it wanted from the Prairie State.
Illinois newspapers and a state investigation into the Klan’s use of the fairgrounds turned up Klan members in government: a legislator, possibly the governor’s secretary, many in its highways department, the assistant secretary of the Senate, and fairground workers. While Klansmen proclaimed they got Governor Small re-elected (one appeared with him at a campaign rally), Small claimed that he was not a member.
Many other states’ leaders were. According to a 1976 report by the Illinois Legislative Investigating Commission, “governors in 10 states and 13 senators in nine states were elected with Klan help. At least one senator, Hugo Black, who was destined to become a United States Supreme Court Justice, had been a Klansman.”
https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/when-kkk-ruled-colorado-not-so-long-ago
The Ku Klux Klan had no presence in Colorado in 1920. By 1925, Klan members and sponsored candidates controlled the Colorado State House and Senate, the office of Secretary of State, a state Supreme Court judgeship, seven benches on Denver District Court, and city councils in some Colorado towns. Mayor Ben Stapleton of Denver and Governor Clarence Morley (Republican) of Colorado were also Klansmen. The Klan was stronger in Colorado than any other state. How did the Klan gain power so quickly and absolutely?
William Joseph Simmons of Georgia called for the resurrection of the Klan in 1915. By 1920, only 5,000 or so members had joined in Alabama and Georgia. Clearly, the old organizing prejudices weren’t enough to mobilize a respectable membership. The Klan developed a new recruiting message focused more on the menace that Catholics and Jews posed to the “nation’s Protestant ideals” than on Blacks. According to the excellent history Hooded Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado by Robert Goldberg, the KKK posed as saviors of “Old Time Religion” and Americanism. As adherents to the Pope and their “polytheistic” religion of saints, Catholics were seen as completely excluded from such Americanism. Colorado was predominantly Protestant, and this message played well here. Conspiracy theories about a secret Catholic government of overlords abounded, much as such stories about Jews make the circuit today. The Klan also stood for fair elections, for law and order against the backdrop of Prohibition bootlegging and rampant crime, and against the loosening of morals brought by new music, new dances, and Hollywood, things the general public could get behind.
While Catholics, Jews and Blacks spoke out against the Klan in newspapers such as Denver Express, Denver’s major papers were silent or neutral. The Klan infiltrated both political parties. Local Klan chapters preyed on local prejudices and divisions. Business owners proudly displayed Klan stickers, and protestant elites and working people, men and women, were quick to join. Barring a few exceptions, such as Denver District Attorney Philip Van Cise, a fierce Klan opponent, few politicians or Protestants spoke out against the Klan, allowing them to consolidate influence and power rapidly.
Strangely, part of the Klan’s appeal was that it functioned as a social outing for many Protestants. In fact, members in Grand Junction flocked to the KKK not so much from prejudice, but because they thought of it as another Elk’s lodge, except with hoods and weird cross burning ceremonies out in the desert. Even Dalton Trumbo tried to join because it was the hot “thing to do.” In Denver, the Klan held picnics (one drew 100,000 people), auto races (a Catholic won. See photo), and had many other events. Of course, the old Klan sometimes reared its ugly head, driving Blacks from white neighborhoods and discriminating against Italians and Mexicans. Beginning in 1925, the Klan’s power in Colorado waned. The Colorado Grand Dragon was investigated for tax evasion, and corruption scandals rocked Klan office holders. But for those few short years, the Klan ruled Colorado.
It’s heroin to them
Yet just a few posts earlier it looks like the political party of the Klansman is what interested you:
“Suppose some Republican had wandered into a Klan meeting by mistake or out of curiosity. The media would NEVER forgive that. Well, Byrd didn’t just wander into a Klan meeting. He was actually running the Klan meeting.”
That would be a large klan wouldn’t if it had the number same as Planned Parenthood does
Even larger than the Northern klan back in the Wilson era when a lot of folks were in it and marched in DC
It’s zenith so to speak
anti catholic and anti immigrant it caused in large part the quotas that came into play ...1924....and stopped so much immigration till Kennedy and I think Hart in mid 60s
A bill much like civil rights that REAL CONSERVATIVES like Reagan and Goldwater and Buckley and others now maligned on this very D’Souza stroking site eschewed with vigor
Freepers really can be daft God love em
Pass that Martin Luther King popcorn would ya I just can’t get enough...with extra butter please
> just a few posts earlier it looks like the political party of the Klansman is what interested you <
In a way, it does. But only because of how the media would paint the picture. A Republican who attended a Klan meeting would be slammed by the media today, tomorrow, and forever.
But if it were a Democrat, the story would be ignored. Or if it couldn’t be ignored, the media would say that the Democrat has “evolved”, and is now a swell guy.
A perfect example of that is the Democrat governor of Virginia, and his Klan yearbook picture. All is forgiven. He’s a swell guy again.
But morally, I make no distinction between a Republican who supported the Klan and a Democrat who supported the Klan. Both would have some explaining to do. No free pass for either.
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