New Evidence-Sen. Robert Byrd [D-WVA] May Have Been Klan Member 'Well Past' 1943

Newsmax.com ^ | January 22, 2003 | Carl Limbacher

[ewing]

Coming Wednesday to Newsmax.com:

Evidence surfaces that Former President Pro Tem of the United States Senate Robert Byrd may have been a member of the Klu Klux Klan 'well past' 1943 , the year he maintained he resigned from the notorious hate group.

[Responsible for 6 lynchings while the Senator was a member, one near his home state in Georgia]

Read more about this subject in related Hot Topics:DNC

[ewing]

Developing today, the teaser is in Freeper Kevin Martins protest article on Robert Byrd in the left news corner.

[wimpycat]

Byrd was actually born in NC and when he was orphaned he went to live with relatives in WV. What's this about his home state of Georgia?

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[Tacis]

This would be of concern to the left wing media only if Kleagle Byrd switched to the Republican party.

[ewing]

There was reasearch done by Newsmax.com of old newspaper articles to see if Byrd participated in any lynchings/hate crimes while he was a member of the Klan.

The archives came up with 6 in that time frame the closest to North Carolina/West Virginia being Georgia.

[goodnesswins]

DAY of SUPPORT....FLY your flags (US, a British one, Hungarian, Australian and Japanese one, too if you have them)....and put up your BUSH/CHENEY signs, (and the BIG W's on your SUV's) for the STATE of the UNION next Tuesday, Jan 28th, if you support the President, our MILITARY and the United States of America. PSST....pass it on.

[ewing]

Exactamundo.

[Treebeard]

Yeah, his birth name was Cornelius Calvin Sale, ran across him in some genealogy I've been doing on the Sale family of North Carolina. IIRC, the 1918 flu epidemic did his parents in and he was adopted.

[votelife]

great idea. WILL DO!

[expatpat]

"There will never be a Negro on the US Supreme Court, I can guarantee you that. Mr. [Thurgood] Marshall holds views which our dangerous to this nation and our posterity. I know a group of Senators, who, like myself...will hold up his confirmation vote for months if we have to." --Senator Robert C. Byrd, June 1967

He certainly was aligned with them as late as 1967.

[ewing]

And still he has never apologized for it in 37 years of public life.

[ewing]

How late was he still a member 1950.. 1960!!??

[nycgal]

the 1918 flu epidemic did his parents in and he was adopted

How old is Byrd? If his parents died in 1918, he is at least 85 years old.

[far sider]

"There will never be a Negro on the US Supreme Court, I can guarantee you that. Mr. [Thurgood] Marshall holds views which our dangerous to this nation and our posterity. I know a group of Senators, who, like myself...will hold up his confirmation vote for months if we have to." --Senator Robert C. Byrd, June 1967

I see Dem tactics haven't changed, have they?

[ZULU]

"...a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

He must be referring to a typical DemoCRAPic politician.

[metesky]

Mr. [Thurgood] Marshall holds views which our dangerous to this nation and our posterity.

Even a stopped watch...

[MJY1288]

"I see Dem tactics haven't changed, have they?

Just ask Clarance Thomas if you have any doubts :-)

[ewing]

I guess I was just counting Washington.

[concerned about politics]

Once a slave producing Democrat, always a slave producing Democrat.

[FR_addict]

And Byrd is the mentor for Edwards, the NC senator running for President.

[OReilly]

This thread would be pulled (without explanation) at DU...

[Savage Beast]

Post #11: Is there a reference for these immortal words?

[Xthe17th]

Robert Carlyle Byrd of Sophia, Raleigh County, W.Va. Born November 20, 1917 (as Cornelius Calvin Sale) in North Wilkesboro, Wilkes County, NC. Natural parents died of influenza in epidemic of 1918 and thus little orphan Bobby was reared by his aunt and uncle as their own in the Mountain State.

[Xthe17th]

er, I guess that should be "little orphan Corny".

[Spunky]

There was some talk awhile back that Byrd was the 4th in line for the presidency.

I have a question: Is he still 4th in line since the republicans and the 108th congress are now in effect and if not who is?

[Tijeras_Slim]

Looky looky....

I hope Kevin tears hima new one.

[Redbob]

"Mr. [Thurgood] Marshall holds views which our dangerous to this nation and our posterity."

He was certainly right about Thurgood, though!

[jackbill]

I have a question: Is he still 4th in line since the republicans and the 108th congress are now in effect and if not who is?

Actually he WAS third in the line of succession: VP, Speaker of the House, President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

Ted Stevens of Alaska is now the President Pro Tempore.

As a sop to Byrd, the Republicans named him President Pro Tempore Emeritus - so that he can keep a car and driver. But it doesn't keep him in line for the Presidency.

[Redbob]

"I have a question: Is he still 4th in line since the republicans and the 108th congress are now in effect and if not who is?"

Back in the bad ol' days, when the Dims were in the majority, Byrd was President Pro-Tem of the Senate.

But NOW, the so-called "Republicans" we sent to Washington have voted to make him "President Pro-Tem Emeritus"!!! and have given him a special suite of offices modeled to look like the Pres. Pro-Tem's office!!!

The spirit (or spinelessness) of Trent Lott lives on in the GOP leadership!

[Spunky]

But NOW, the so-called "Republicans" we sent to Washington have voted to make him "President Pro-Tem Emeritus

What a shame, but who is the President Pro-tem now, since Emeritus means retired?

[Spirited]

That can't happen here?

[Spunky]

I hadn't seen your posting when I responded to the other Freeper at #32.

Thanks for the info.

[expatpat]

I believe it came out of the Congressional record; I picked it up from an earlier, longer posting. Sorry, I don't have a reference.

[Dajjal]

BTTT

[Balata]

LINK HERE.

Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2003 5:27 p.m. EST

Byrd's KKK Alibi Comes Unraveled

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., has said repeatedly over the years that he joined the notorious anti-black hate group the Ku Klux Klan during World War II - not because he was a racist but because the Klan had taken a strong stance against communism, a system of government that then existed only in the Soviet Union.

But Byrd's KKK alibi doesn't stand up to even the most cursory historical scrutiny, as a World War II veteran pointed out to NewsMax.com Wednesday.

"When Byrd said he joined the Klan, it couldn't have been famous for being anti-Communist, since in 1943 the Soviet Union was our crucial ally in World War II," said our source, who served in the Air Force, then known as the Army Air Corps, in preparation for the Normandy invasion.

"In 1943 Franklin Roosevelt was still calling Stalin 'Uncle Joe'," he added. "And I remember U.S. military maps that showed the Red Army's advances toward Berlin, which was something we were all happy about."

Further puncturing Sen. Byrd's KKK alibi, the World War II vet recalled, "There would have been no reason for any patriotic American to have been anti-Communist in 1943 - because we were doing everything we could to help the Reds beat Hitler on the Eastern Front."

In fact, anti-communism didn't emerge as a genuine force in American politics until 1947, with the outbreak of the Cold War - four years after Byrd says he left the Klan. Two weeks ago the West Virginia Democrat's press secretary Tom Gavin said his boss had belonged to the Klan for only "a number of months."

It was during this period that Byrd - supposedly by then an EX-Klansman - was advising Grand Imperial Wizard Samuel Green on whom to appoint to important posts in the hierarchy of the hate group. In a letter to Green, Byrd urged, "the Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia" and "in every state in the Union."

A year later, in 1948, Byrd opposed President Truman's initiative to integrate the Armed Forces - and he did so using the language of a very much active Klansman.

The powerful Senate Democrat vowed then that he would "never submit to fight beneath that banner [the American flag] 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."

"If Byrd said he thought the Klan's main job was fighting communism, he's either not being honest about why he joined - or he was a Klansman a lot longer than he now wants to admit," said the World War II vet.