Posted on 06/19/2005 4:24:18 PM PDT by wagglebee
Robert C. Byrd, the man Democrats call the conscience of the Senate, is crediting the Ku Klux Klan with jump-starting a political career that turned him into one of the most powerful players on Capitol Hill.
Byrd's memoir - scheduled to hit bookstores tomorrow - is titled, "Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields." But it's the never-before-told details about Byrd's involvement with the domestic terrorist group that are sure to generate the most controversy.
Byrd begins, for instance, by explaining that he was an ambitious 25-year-old butcher in West Virginia in the early 1940s when opportunity knocked: a chance to prove his mettle by joining the black-hating, Jew baiting, anti-Catholic organization.
Byrd threw himself into the challenge, recruiting 150 new Klansman as a Klan Kleagle in just a few months.
The feat so impressed Klan Grand Dragon Joel Baskin that Baskin urged the eager Klansman to enter politics. "The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation," the Grand Dragon advised.
According to coverage of the book in the Washington Post, Byrd promptly took Baskin's advice, running for the position of the Klan "Exalted Cyclops" - the top spot in his local KKK chapter.
Byrd won the race "unanimously," he reveals.
Another telling detail: Byrd's father was a full fledged Klansman who participated in KKK parades as his young son cheered from the sidelines.
In less credible passages of the book, the West Virginia Democrat tries to paint the Klan - not as a gang of notorious nightriders - but a Southern version of the Rotary or Elks Club.
According to the Post, Byrd insists that the Klan was "a fraternal group of elites -- doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and other 'upstanding people."
At no time, claims the former Senate Majority Leader, did the Klan he knew preach violence against blacks, Jews or Catholics.
Byrd also apparently shades the truth about the amount of time he spent as a Klansman.
During his first race for the House in 1952, his opponent made an issue of his Klan ties. In a dramatic radio address, the would-be congressman acknowledged that he had once been a Klansman, but only from "mid-1942 to early 1943," after which Byrd cut his ties.
A few months later, however, contrary evidence emerged.
It was a 1946 letter handwritten by the West Virginia Democrat to the Klan's Grand Imperial Wizard. "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia," Byrd insisted.
The top Senate Democrat declines to explain the discrepancy in his memoir.
At no time, claims the former Senate Majority Leader, did the Klan he knew preach violence against blacks, Jews or Catholics.
Now I've heard it all!
Byrd won the race "unanimously," he reveals.
I think Klansman Byrd just earned a new name on FreeRepublic: Exalted Cyclops Byrd.
It may have started out that way, but this was when Confederate Gen. Nathaniel Bedford Forrest started it back in the late 1800s. By the early-to-mid-20th centuries, it had been morphed into the modern anti-black, anti-Catholic, anti-Jew organiation it is today.
Wonder if this could be an addition to the Koran Wiping movement?
Byrd thinks the KKK was Skull and Bones for non-Yalies.
According to the Post, Byrd insists that the Klan was "a fraternal group of elites -- doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and other 'upstanding people."
Uh oh,...... how are the Rev's Jackson & Sharpton going to come to grips with this: KKK=Upstanding people?
Guess he thought those black men hanging from trees were pinatas?
He thought they were committing suicide because they were being denied government subsidies.
Oh great nothing like starting a career using nefarious mean. Maybe Sheets will inspire other bigots. Heck could inspire some drug dealers, con men and car thieves as well. After all it doesn't matter how you got to where you are. Byrd and the Kennedy family prove just that.
Why was Byrd running around West Virginia in a white sheet during the middle of WWII? Did he ever serve during the war?
Interesting that his daughter married a Muslim.
Sheets might be proud, they hate Jewish people as much as the Klan does.
Interesting that is party he represents has the half the catholics and the majority of blacks and Jews.
Jackson ,Sharpton and all the other black leaders have already...They scream racism about republicans,pro-lifers,conservatives and catholics but never about the democrat who was really in the ku klux klan.....Wonder how many blacks he helped lynch???????
The most beloved teacher at my high school used to tell us stories about when he was in the Klan in the 30's. He was as fine a man as I have ever known. He would not mind my saying his name was W.C. Hickman. He was also a retired football and track coach.
I wonder how they are going to spin this over at DU?
Most 20's Klansman were not radical, but those who were, those were the one's who caused all the problems.
There was a scandal in Indiana regarding some Klansman, I think his name was Stephenson, ended up bringing down pretty much the entire Republican Party in the state for a while. (The 20's Klan was bipartisan, really scary when you think about it, it had more muscle in the 20's then the NRA does today)
But, to most people, the Klan was somewhere you went so you could have picnics, and of course, get business connections.
We elected a former Grand Dragon in Alabama (and the irony is, when he was Governor, he made it a point to try to increase funding to black schools)
The Klan of the 20's to most people of the time, was kind of like the Religious Right was today. In the North it was anti-Union, but in Birmingham, it was estimated that 80% of Protestant union members also belonged to the Klan.
In Alabama, the Klan actually allied with the "Progressive" side of state politics, electing Bibb Graves, Hugo Black, and of course, opposing Underwood's run for President. (When you think Underwood, think Woodrow Wilson, except as a businessman)
What made the Klan dangerous was that it did have the secrecy, and by in large, the Klan managed to infilitrate some of the more corrupt police departments in the country (like Birmingham, which they retained an influence in well into the 60s)
It's probably this Klan that Byrd was exposed to as a child, because their chief slogan was "100% Americanism"
Of course, being Catholic and all, my family never had anything to do with these people, this was probably the one place in Alabama where being in the Klan would get you ostracized (in the 1920s, anyway)
It has been many years since I read the book that gave me the impression that the early days of the KKK were somewhat more benign than its latter days, so I couldn't offer any further facts. Who knows, perhaps the book I read was overly sympathetic. Regardless of whether the early KKK was benign, Sen. Byrd is an idiot to think that it was similarly benign in his time (or ours)--or a liar to say so, at least.
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