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Posted on 03/11/2005 8:11:53 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Former Ku Klux Klansman Sen. Robert Byrd said Thursday that he decided to leave the anti-black terrorist group in 1946 after becoming a born-again Christian, adding that the only reason he used the "N"-word in a 2001 television interview is because he'd heard black leaders say it.
Asked why he left the Klan, Byrd told Fox News Channel's Alan Colmes, "My wife and I, we're born- again Christians . . . We were baptized in the Old Church Yard at Crab Orchard Baptist Church in 1946 . . . That changed my thinking in many ways."
"Time, reflection, and the teachings of the Bible" helped him cut his ties with the Klan, Byrd said - where he served as Grand Kleagle and was paid $10 a head to recruit like-minded racists who were willing to lynch blacks. Asked why - 55 years after he abandoned the hate-group - he used the "N"-word twice during an interview on "Fox News Sunday," the ex-Klansman explained:
"Well, I have heard many people use it. I have heard black leaders use it. I've heard white leaders use it."
Byrd told Colmes that the racist slur "meant nothing" to him, except to describe someone who was ignorant.
The West Virginia Democrat insisted that he'd always tried "to do the right thing."
But he didn't explain why he decided to lead the filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, or championed the renaming of the Senate's main office after Georgia Sen. Richard B. Russell, whose chief accomplishment was blocking the passage of anti-lynching legislation in the 1930's and 40's.
Instead Byrd insisted it was time to close the book on the earlier chapters of his life, saying, "I was wrong, as many young men are wrong today, even when they join groups. That's all in the past."
Why did Robert Byrd join the Klan?
How many people were lynched or beaten by those he recruited? Or, didn't he even bother to ask?
ACC! ACC! That's us chanting now WV.
Byrd is like Kennedy. The thought of eventually getting exposed by the replacement is worse than death. It's why they will outlive us all.
Nonsense. Byrd joined the Klan when it was a political plus for a rising young southern politician, and he left the Klan when it became a political minus.
It's as simple as that.
Byrd insisted that he had "always tried to do the, RIGHT ,thing". An obvious attempt to claim RIGHT thinking on his part is responsible for his raciest wrongs.
It's time to close the book on the latter years of your self serving life as well, Byrd, -except for the part where you sit around the old folks home, playing graba$$ with every nurse who wanders too close to your rocking chair.
The saddest part to me is that people get a general view of ALL SENATORS being like this senile disgusting person.
I was stunned to hear Byrd say something about having a "majority of numbers in the senate should not guarantee confirmation". HUH! But when there was a "majority of numbers" in the senate WHO WERE DEMOCRATS - that was okay.
When a person thinks like that - opposite of total logic - they are senile or just plain looney.
I'm hoping the people of his state will boot him out in 2006. There are some older repubs I'd be just as interested in seeing out of there. It's time for new blood and NEW SPINE - AND PEOPLE IN THE SENATE WHO SUPPORT AMERICA AND NOT EUROPE.
He left because they went soft.
Can anyone imagine the state of the nation if Bush and Gonzoles had done what Clinton and Reno did to those American Citizens in Waco? Liberals would be marching and rioting like Hezballah thru a synogogue on Yom Kippur if Bush had been in office during Waco.
Colmes asked if HE was tired or offended by the constant reference to his KKK past!!! I found that unbelievable. Imagine if any Republican had been a member, and esp. at the level he apparently had. Dan Rather wouldn't even have to fabricate documents to attack that sort of background! And Jesse Jackson and the rest would mention it on a daily basis.
In the final analysis, what's the difference between what Sheets did then and what he does now? When he was a Kliegle in the KKK, he led the physical lynching of Black people.
Now, he takes their money, sinks it into non-useful projects in W. Virginia, many of whom are named after him, and keeps Black people, like most other Demorats in Congress from making progress on their own, because he and they try to make them totally dependent on the Demorat Party.
He and his party just use the harsh rhetoric and innuendo to make Blacks think Republicans hate them while the Demorats treat them as total vassals to their party.
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"Well, the old relic may be right about being wrong. I was actually out of my mind once, and as a reaction to Nixon shaming the White House, I voted for Carter. I was wrong."
I did exactly the same thing for exactly the same reason. We really showed them, didn't we? lol
My wife will never, ever let me live that down.
We screwed up, as did millions of other Americans. :)
"Well, I have heard many people use it. I have heard black leaders use it. I've heard white leaders use it."
I'm thinking he used it because senility is rapidly catching up with him. Based on the times I have seen him speaking on C-SPAN, he has undergone a major decline in the last two or three years.
In 1964 it was Byrd who filibustered the Civil Rights Act.
I don't know how many judges he has opposed let alone black judges. He recently quoted Hitler to support his stand against the constitutional option. He instead prefers the filibuster which is not an extended discussion but nothing more than a means by which to shut down Congress.
Today is today, what difference does yesterday make, assuming there was one?
My post was referring to the writer's comment about Richard Russell being remembered primarily for stopping anti-lynching legislation. I don't think that's fair.
As for Byrd, I think he is a POS. I think all of us here are in absolute agreement in that regard.
From: The Democrat Party's Long and Shameful History of Bigotry and Racism http://members.tripod.com/~gopcapitalist/democratrecord.html
..One of the earliest criticisms of Byrd's Klan ties came in 1952 when he was running for Congress. Byrd responded by claiming that he had left the Klan in 1943 while noting that "(d)uring the nine years that have followed, I have never been interested in the Klan." Byrd was lying, however, as he engaged in correspondence with a Klan Imperial Wizard long after he claims to have ended his ties with the hate group.
In a letter to the Klan leadership (Source) dated 3 years after he purported to have ended his ties with them, Byrd wrote "I am a former kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County and the adjoining counties of the state. The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia." Byrd continued his racist diatribe "It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state of the Union" and followed with a request for assistance from the hate group's leadership in "rebuilding the Klan in the realm" of West Virginia.
Byrd's racism extends far beyond his Klan membership. In a letter he wrote on the subject of desegregating the armed forces, Byrd escalated his racist rhetoric to an appalling level. In the letter, Byrd vowed that he would never fight in an integrated armed services noting "(r)ather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds" (Source).
Byrd's racist opinions have shown their ugly face in his behavior in the Senate. Byrd led the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and, according to the United States Senate's own website, filibustered the legislation to the bitter end appearing as one of the last opponents to the act before a coalition of civil rights proponents led by Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen invoked cloture so that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 could pass. At the time, Byrd was in the the midst of a 14 hour and 13 minute filibuster diatribe against the key civil rights measure (Source). Throughout the 1960's, Byrd was was one of the staunchest opponents to civil rights in the U.S. Senate.
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