Posted on 01/22/2003 3:23:12 AM PST by ovrtaxt
Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST Civil Rights Leader to Picket 'KKK' Byrd Tribute
A Washington, D.C.-based civil rights leader said Tuesday that he would "chain [himself] to the construction site" of a ceremonial office being built as a tribute to Ku Klux Klansman-turned-senator, Robert Byrd, D-W.V.
"I will not stand idly by and allow the building of a fantasy office for 'a minister of hate' such as Robert Byrd," said Kevin Martin, political affairs director of the African-American Republican Leadership Council. "I am willing to chain myself to the construction site, run the risk of arrest and know I stood on principle rather than remain silent."
Yesterday reports surfaced of a secret budget appropriation to build a replica in the Capitol Building of the ornate office Byrd used to occupy as Senate Pro Tempore, even though he lost the pro tem post when the Democrats lost their plurality.
The exact cost has not been made public and it is unmentioned in any appropriations document or even internal Senate correspondence. But some estimated the Byrd tribute would come with a six-figure price tag, according to the Knight-Ridder news service.
Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said Byrd's colleagues feared retribution from the ex-Klansman unless they found a new way to honor him, explaining, "Frankly, it's not worth the trouble he can create if you don't give him deference."
But on Tuesday Martin decried the Byrd shakedown as an outrage. "I say shame on both Senate Democrats and Republicans for saddling the American public with the bill of building a monument to an evil one-time recruiter of persons who wanted to conduct terrorist acts against fellow Americans."
Last week Byrd said through a spokesman that he had never participated in lynchings or cross burnings while he was in the Klan briefly during World War II. But questions continue to swirl about the West Virginia Democrat's claim, offered through his spokesman Tom Gavin, that he wasn't a racist while he was a member of the virulently anti-black terror group.
"Democrats can play the race-baiting games all they want, but Senator Robert Byrd is a continued reminder of their racist past of jackboots, billyclubs, water hoses, dogs and nightriders," Martin said. "I refuse to accept Senator Byrd's excuse of why he was a member of the KKK."
Coming Wednesday: Evidence surfaces indicating that Byrd may have been a Ku Klux Klan member well past 1943, the year he maintains he resigned from the notorious hate group.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: DNC
But … but … but … they aren’t building it because of Byrd’s KKK affiliation – they’re building it because he’s a Democrat!
His telephone number is 901-578-1160, ext. 212; e-mail is mikefleming@600wrec.com
The exact cost has not been made public and it is unmentioned in any appropriations document or even internal Senate correspondence. But some estimated the Byrd tribute would come with a six-figure price tag, according to the Knight-Ridder news service.
Byrd's past is morally shameful, but this office business is fiscally shameful. During the nation's economic crisis, when we are on the verge of a costly war, this creep should not be wasting money on redecorating.
These Senators and Congresscritters re-decorate their offices every term, each of them operating on budgets that could provide housing for a whole family in their home districts. There are warehouses of discarded custom made furniture in Washington left over from these decorating binges and it's outrageous. We have to pay for storing what the Congresscritter doesn't want to take home with him at the end of his term. Former Speaker Foley filled a warehouse in Washington State with his stuff and then took another Government job (a no-no).
Give Byrd a suite of rooms, a paint brush, and let him pick his furniture from the leftovers the goverment already owns. He's back in the minority, and he should feel like it.
Not only did Byrd say that (in a letter he wrote in 1946, I believe,) but he in fact did not serve in the armed forces in World War Two. When Strom Thurmond (in his 40's) landed in Normandy as a paratrooper on D-Day, Byrd (in his 20's) was working comfortably at a defense plant in West Virginia.
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