Byrd Fingered in KKK Cover-up

NewsMax.com ^ | Thursday Jan. 16, 2003; 12:03 A.M. EST | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[Jean S]

A Washington, D.C.-based civil rights leader said Wednesday he has uncovered documents indicating that Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV, was a member of the notorious anti-black hate group the Ku Klux Klan for a far longer period of time than he has admitted.

"Some people say that he was only in (the Klan) for a couple of months," said Kevin Martin, head of the African-American Republican Leadership Council, in an interview on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes." "But we have documentation that says he was in for almost two years," Martin revealed.

On Monday, Byrd's spokesman Tom Gavin insisted to NewsMax.com that the Senator's days in the Klan, where he served as a Grand Kleagle-recruiter, lasted for just "a number of months" in 1943. Gavin said Byrd came clean about his secret past in a series of private conversations the two had over the last five years.

But according to an expert on the Klan quoted by the Washington Post last year, Byrd was still advising Grand Imperial Wizard Samuel Green on Klan appointments and strategy until at least 1946.

On Monday Gavin maintained that Byrd had told him he had nothing to do with any lynchings or cross burnings during his days in the Klan. But he also revealed that Byrd insists he wasn't ever a racist - not even as a card-carrying member of the night-riding terror group.

AARLC chief Martin vowed that conservative civil rights groups like the Congress of Racial Equality, Project 21, and the Brotherhood Organization for a New Destiny would ferret out the truth about the Democratic Party's ex-Klansman.

"We're going to lay the records out," said Martin. "And it's (the Democratic) Party that is the party of dogs, night-riders and Bull Connors."

On Tuesday BOND chief Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson called for a congressional investigation into Byrd's Klan past, saying his bizarre claim that he was racially tolerant as Klansman undermined his other assertions that he never participated in lynchings or cross burnings.

That's why the top Senate Democrat needs to "explain his relationship with the Klan" to congressional investigators, Peterson said. Any probe into Byrd's activities should cover "not only the actions that he took, but he should identify the people that were involved in the Klan at the time," he added.

"I really would like to see him name the people who participated in the lynchings of black Americans during that time," the Los Angeles-based civil rights leader said. "Because some of those people could still be involved in the legal system of this country making decisions about Americans today. And we need to know who those people are."

[weegee]

As AP likes to say "dozens".

[lorrainer]

Trueblackman BUMP! It was even better the second time.

[weegee]

On Monday Gavin maintained that Byrd had told him he had nothing to do with any lynchings or cross burnings during his days in the Klan. But he also revealed that Byrd insists he wasn't ever a racist - not even as a card-carrying member of the night-riding terror group.

Deny deny deny.

What was Byrd's recruitment technique if he wasn't playing to rubes racism?

What's the meaning behind his statement that he did not support black men in the military, saying that he'd rather be dead than serve along side them?

Not a racist? Please...

[syriacus]

From the Daily Trojan, student newspaper of the University of Southern California...

Playing the race card, by William Goodwin

Trent Lott deservedly is politically through. Sen. Robert Byrd's track record, however, is at least equally ill-starred, yet he remains a Democratic leader despite being the only former Ku Klux Klan member in the Senate.

Byrd voted against the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and took the floor for 14 hours in the filibuster attempting to derail the act. He is the only senator to have voted against both black Supreme Court nominees, Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. Yet he was the majority leader from 1977 until 1989. And even last year, in an interview with Fox News, he was quoted as saying, "There are white n*****s. I've seen a lot of white n*****s in my time." He later apologized.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

"I'm sure this will make front page news across the country."

No worries. Front page news across the country isn't what elected Bush, isn't what won the House, isn't what won the Senate, and isn't what won massive gains in state government.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

When has Newsmax failed to report accurately? I've heard Rush and Hannity both quote Newsmax.

[zygoat]

You reduced him to a grinning skull, dull eyes staring forward, teeth clenched, and searching for an appropriate response-of which there were none. You could see the turmiol raging within .You have truly shown us what lies under the liberals outer face when their double standards cannot rescue them. All he could do was sputter and ask ,if, after all-hasn't enough time gone by? An argument he , and all democrats dismissed out of hand when a republican was in the crosshairs. Excellent.EXCELLENT!

[doosee]

Bravo to Trueblackman for a direct hit on the Dem. hypocrasy and double standards. I loved it when you said Hollings was going to get his due also. You will have the rats running off the sinking ship. You definitely have a supporter in SC here.

[Adder]

"All he could do was sputter and ask ,if, after all-hasn't enough time gone by? An argument he , and all democrats dismissed out of hand when a republican was in the crosshairs."
__________________________________________________________
All that is well and true. Yet I recall these threads claiming the same thing about Trent Lott and rather vehemently. I am NO friend of the dems, to be sure, and I DO like to see them squirm. I understand that payback is a beotch. Yes, we expose the Dem hypocrisy but it just isn't going to ignite the same firestorm that Trent Lott did...you KNOW it won't because Byrd is one of their own. We MIGHT be able to deflect the "racist" accusations.
BUT: isn't it time for the past to be just that: the past? This country has evolved mightily in the last 50yrs in the way we view other people different from ourselves. Positions taken in 1860, 1948, 1973 or any other year are irrelevant, especially if those positions have been abandoned. It is knowing the facts but not judging events by today's standards. Racism in the early part of this century was ok. The place of women in society was vastly different. A lot of things were different. Thats just the way it was.
It seems to me that the left wants to constantly rewrite history to wring revenge out of the past, to denigrate, deconstruct and to destroy our history as a nation and a civilization. They are little interested in "TRVTH" and more interested in demonization. We always condemn it mightily in these threads.
One danger I see is fuelling the further destruction of our history["we must expunge all signs of the oppressors and their vile culture"], setting the entire country up for a massive apology["The president should apologize" Question: Does not the image of the President of the United States of America groveling strike anyone besides me as humiliating?] AND adding fuel to the so far smoldering reparations debate. I can hear the arguments now: You have demonstrated that ALL white people were racist so therefore you owe us big time.
Maybe this view of mine is totally off base especially when the opposition proves time and again that they will bite any proffered hand savagely and that we should learn to fight like they do. Sometimes I do advocate just such a policy. But it just seems like this reaching into an ever distant past is self defeating and probably does more to hurt than to help.
Flame away.

[hobbes1]

Saw you puttin it to Alan Colmes last Nite....

Great Job!!!! He had me screaming, We'll Forgive Byrd, when every Race baiting Democrat apologizes for Doing it.

Way to go.

[blaze]

Attention members of the press, and members of the DemocRAT party! There is nothing to see here! Move on to another thread! If you did happen to read this thread, simply go into the state of denial you have perfected over the years! I REPEAT there is nothing to see here!!!

[tickles]

just out of curiosity, is/was it normal to attain a fairly high ranking postition in just a few months?

My observations are in most things moving up the ladder takes time, I mean, even hilary hasn't attained her party leadership roll in a couple months, she's been working and prodding them for a couple years now and finally seems to have attained part of her goal, and she had the recognition and the files to help her along, so what could have vaulted Mr. byrd into a high position in the KKK, that probably required proof of committment and a very high level of trust from those who were very dedicated to the KKK? After all they were not identified publicly so they had to rely on their fellow members to zip their lips.

[Brett66]

If Byrd was involved in lynchings then he was guilty of murder, this shouldn't be given a pass.

[aristeides]

Guess who else was a Klan recruiter? I was looking at a biography of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black this morning. Turns out he occupied the position of Kladd in the Alabama Klan, which also involved recruiting. Black is the man who is above all responsible for the Supreme Court's current doctrines on the separation of church and state. According to a recent book, he was motivated by the hatred of Catholicism endemic in the Klan.

[lainie]

Congratulations on your appearance! I especially liked the phrase "you've let the genie out of the bottle." I'm going to use that. Lazy thinkers can't have these things both ways -- and it's people like you that will help focus the rest of us and keep them on their hooks.

Watch out or you'll have to change your name to Trueblackleader.

[savedbygrace]

there's no statute of limitations for murder. That's why we'll never get the answers to these two questions.

[zygoat]

I agree with you that this constant rehashing of the past is getting out of hand-but who pushed it to its point of no return? Democrats have been lining up like batters at baseball practice to whack us with the never-ending club of "racsism". The broadside fired at Colmes and it's effect upon him was comparable to splashing a vampire with Holy water-I think it has the potential to nullify the race card as an effective weopon for the left.

[Adder]

Of course, there is no pass for that.

[timestax]

bump

[Paulus Invictus]

What is the mission statement or purpose of the KKK? Is Grand Kleagle Byrd telling the world that he didn't understand what the Klan is all about now (or was all about in alleged two years he was a member)? It's very hard to believe he was not fully aware.

Was Byrd a Klan member during the tempestuous 60's period in Klan history when they did all they could to intimidate black voters and overturn the Civil Rights Act. Another fact is that possibly all Klansmen were also RATS. That included Justice Hugo Black of the Supremes. Mercy!