The Senate Holds Another ‘Community Organizer’: Robert Byrd of the KKK

Capital Research Center ^ | September 11, 2008 | Matthew Vadum

[vadum]

With the brouhaha on the left over GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's belittling of Senator Barack Obama's previous career as a 'community organizer' (note that she didn't offer any guidance as to what community organizing actually consists of or why she thinks it unworthy of respect) still in progress, it just occurred to me that Barack Obama is not the only member of the United States Senate who was a so-called community organizer.

So was Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

Byrd, who as president pro tempore of the Senate is third in the line of presidential succession, was a "Kleagle," an official recruiter in the Ku Klux Klan, who received $10 for each new member he brought in to the hate group. Byrd, who later renounced his association with the Klan, was so esteemed in the community-based organization at one time that his local chapter elected him "Exalted Cyclops."

The KKK is (or was) arguably a terrorist group, and despite the aggressive direct-mail campaign of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is not much of a threat nowadays because its membership has withered away to perhaps 3,000 members after its heyday several decades ago when it controlled several state legislatures.

[fungoking]

Only funny because it is true.

[eclecticEel]

There's nothing funny about this part:

third in the line of presidential succession

[twhitak]

So was Barack Obama in the KKK?

[sheik yerbouty]

You never know who’s hiding under those sheets..

[ETL]

Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, Ex-Klansman
by Michelle Malkin (March 8, 2001)

Ex-Klansman Robert Byrd, the senior senator from West Virginia, casually used the phrase "white nigger" twice on national TV this weekend. Enraged civil rights groups organized a protest campaign against Sen. Byrd and demanded that he undergo sensitivity training ... not.

The ex-Klansman, you see, is a Democrat. Democrats can join hate groups and utter the ugliest racial slurs and get away with it because they are Democrats. They belong to the party of racial tolerance and understanding. They're paragons of virtue, and the rest of us are bigoted rubes.

The ex-Klansman showed his true colors when asked by Fox News Sunday morning talk show host Tony Snow about the state of race relations in America. Sen. Byrd warned: "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=383

__________________________________________________________

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

In 1942, 24-year-old Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), whose parades in Matoaka, West Virginia, he had witnessed in his childhood. He was unanimously elected Exalted Cyclops, or leader, of his local chapter.[4]

Byrd, in his autobiography, attributed the beginnings of his political career to this incident, although he lamented that they involved the Klan. According to Byrd, a KKK official told him "You have a talent for leadership, Bob... The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation." Byrd recalls that "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."[4] He participated in the KKK during World War II, holding the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops. He did not serve in the military during the war, working instead as a welder in a Baltimore, Maryland shipyard, where he helped build warships.[citation needed]

Byrd commented on the 1945 controversy about racially integrating the military. Byrd, when he was 28 years old, wrote to segregationist Senator Theodore Bilbo, of Mississippi, vowing never to serve in such a military:

"Rather 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.[5]"

He had earlier written "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side".[6][7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd#Participation_in_the_Ku_Klux_Klan

YouTube - Senator Robert Byrd says "white niggers" on TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FIBJt-c2o0

[onlylewis]

So was Barack Obama in the KKK?

No obama was connected to black power and black liberation movements that wanted to do the same thing to white people as the kkk did to black people.

[Soul Seeker]

So, the Left (and Obama) choose to spend their precious time before the election trying to convince people being a community organizer is a career enhancement for President, that Sarah is Pontius Pilate and Obama is Jesus, and arguing over Lipstick.

Yeah.

This is the way to go. Brilliant move by their campaign strategists. Keep it up.

[GloriaJane]

As I understand it, obama was a Community Organizer for ACORN. That is the ACORN Community Organization that was known in several states for alleged voter fraud and allegedly paying off their Community Organizers in Ohio with crack cocaine back in a previous election.

[GloriaJane]

Here is a link to an ACORN Community Organization meeting talking about how they’re going to take back the White house. Gives you a real good idea of the organization that obama was a part of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=625jUE78zjE

[angelsonmyside]

Bump