Robert Carlyle Byrd (born November 20, 1917) is the senior [Democrat] United States Senator from West Virginia, and a member and former Senate Leader of the Democratic Party....-- snip --
...Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan when he was 24 in 1942. His local chapter unanimously elected him the top officer of their unit...
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Byrd held the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops.
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In 1944, Byrd wrote to segregationist Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo:
"I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... 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." — Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944
Robert C. Byrd [RAT-WV]
