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swampfox
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The Washington Post has a page-one story about Robert Byrd and his history in the KKK. This is tied to his book that is coming out tomorrow. There’s the summer beach read you’ve been longing for: 770 pages of Senator Byrd whitewashing (so to speak) his personal history.
In it, Byrd says he viewed the Klan as a useful platform from which to launch his political career. He described it essentially as a fraternal group of elites – doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and other “upstanding people” who at no time engaged in or preached violence against blacks, Jews or Catholics, who historically were targets of the Klan.
His latest account is consistent with others he has offered over the years that tend to minimize his direct involvement with the Klan and explain it as a youthful indiscretion. “My only explanation for the entire episode is that I was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision – a jejune and immature outlook – seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions,” Byrd wrote.
Yup, just like joining the Rotary Club. He’s just trying to sell his membership as what an ambition up-and-coming young man would do in the West Virginia of his time.
Yet, he was a leader of the organization. First he was the “Exalted Cyclops” of his local unit. I kid you not. Then he became a Kleagle, one of the KKK’s leaders in West Virginia. He argued vociferously against Truman’s intergrating the military
Byrd said in the Dec. 11, 1945, letter – which would not become public for 42 more years with the publication of a book on blacks in the military during World War II by author Graham Smith – that he would never fight in the armed forces “with a Negro by my side.” Byrd added that, “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.”
He was also advocating the spread of the KKK through the country. So, it’s hard to portray this as a youthful flirtation with a local civic organization. In the Senate, he went on to oppose the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, most of the War on Poverty, and Thurgood Marshall’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Yet, he became one of the most prominent Democratic leaders in the Senate. Amazing, isn’t it?
Well, there is one minority right that he is passionate about. The rights of the minority party. With great good luck, he will be a member of the minority party for the rest of his life.
posted by Betsy
The Washington Post has a page-one story about Robert Byrd and his history in the KKK. This is tied to his book that is coming out tomorrow. There’s the summer beach read you’ve been longing for: 770 pages of Senator Byrd whitewashing (so to speak) his personal history.
In it, Byrd says he viewed the Klan as a useful platform from which to launch his political career. He described it essentially as a fraternal group of elites – doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and other “upstanding people” who at no time engaged in or preached violence against blacks, Jews or Catholics, who historically were targets of the Klan.
His latest account is consistent with others he has offered over the years that tend to minimize his direct involvement with the Klan and explain it as a youthful indiscretion. “My only explanation for the entire episode is that I was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision – a jejune and immature outlook – seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions,” Byrd wrote.
Yup, just like joining the Rotary Club. He’s just trying to sell his membership as what an ambition up-and-coming young man would do in the West Virginia of his time.
Yet, he was a leader of the organization. First he was the “Exalted Cyclops” of his local unit. I kid you not. Then he became a Kleagle, one of the KKK’s leaders in West Virginia. He argued vociferously against Truman’s intergrating the military
Byrd said in the Dec. 11, 1945, letter – which would not become public for 42 more years with the publication of a book on blacks in the military during World War II by author Graham Smith – that he would never fight in the armed forces “with a Negro by my side.” Byrd added that, “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.”
He was also advocating the spread of the KKK through the country. So, it’s hard to portray this as a youthful flirtation with a local civic organization. In the Senate, he went on to oppose the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, most of the War on Poverty, and Thurgood Marshall’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Yet, he became one of the most prominent Democratic leaders in the Senate. Amazing, isn’t it?
Well, there is one minority right that he is passionate about. The rights of the minority party. With great good luck, he will be a member of the minority party for the rest of his life.
posted by Betsy
