Byrd’s Life and Career Spanned the Gulf Between the Old and New South
For idiots and ideologues, the death of Robert Carlyle Byrd at age 92 is seen as just another opportunity to trash their political opponents by portraying the longest serving member of Congress as either a saint or a sinner.
Indeed, in the skein of a man’s life, one can easily cherry-pick events to buttress a case either way. Even looking at the totality of one person’s existence can be misleading when events that occurred decades ago slip in and out of context, or when a relativity game is played where someone is judged using contemporary moral standards of thought and behavior.
Biographers make a living doing this sort of thing. And those who choose to chronicle the life of Robert Byrd are going to face more challenges than they would writing about less consequential men.
What will make a biography of Robert Byrd so difficult to write is that he is one of the few important Americans whose political career spanned one of the most divisive and historically significant periods in American history. When first elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1946, Byrd had only recently ended a stint as the local Klu Klux Klan’s Kleagle (recruiter). Just two years ago, he was an early endorser of Barack Obama — an historical twist that even Clio, the muse of history, would have had a hard time engineering.
The 62 years between those two events trace the phenomenal journey both America and Byrd traversed. From the outer darkness to sunlight, through riots, blood, tears, and acts of otherworldly courage and base cowardice, to the uneasy, distrustful, ever-evolving relationship between the descendants of former slaves and slave owners we have today, America and Robert Byrd grew to maturity together, changed together, and ultimately achieved a modicum of tolerance together.
He was sorry, he said, for filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He was sorry for his membership in the Klan, his opposition to the nomination of the first black Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and his support for segregation. He was apparently sorry for a lot — as well he should have been.
The question isn’t whether issuing a public apology for his past stands on racial issues was sincere or not. The real question is why most African Americans, liberals, and Democrats forgave him, believed him, and supported his election to the Senate time and time again.
Surely there is a partisan element in Democratic Party constituencies making Byrd’s political second act a reality. As a born-again supporter of civil rights, Byrd had the luxury of being able to oppose prominent African American Republicans for high office like Clarence Thomas and Condoleezza Rice. The former Kluxer could list his legal and policy differences with those two nominees without fear of anyone on his left flank accusing him of backsliding on racial issues. Rather than being seen as pandering on race, Byrd was celebrated for his “principled” stand against the nominees.
But nothing was ever quite that simple for Byrd. Part of his acceptance into the mainstream of the Democratic Party was surely his encyclopedic knowledge of Senate procedure, along with an unwavering — some might even say fanatical — devotion to his interpretation of the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government. Both Democratic and Republican presidents alike felt the sting of Byrd’s remonstrances when he felt that the chief executive had overstepped his bounds.
As the Senate’s official historian, Byrd could recite, chapter and verse, debates over the great issues that confronted that body in its history, and translate the arguments into contemporary morality tales with applications for today’s lawmakers. His massive, four-volume The Senate, 1789–1989 garnered several non-fiction awards, including the Henry Adams Prize presented by the Society for History in the Federal Government.
What to say about Byrd’s unapologetic dedication to bringing billions of federal dollars to West Virginia in the form of projects and grants — many of questionable value and dubious necessity? Being the longtime chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee had its perks and one them was, in Byrd’s eyes, the god-given right to milk the taxpayer for every last dollar for his state he could finagle from his colleagues. Beyond that, in his later years, Byrd had a mania for having his projects named after himself. He even acquiesced in the commissioning of a statue of himself that stands in the rotunda of the state capitol building in Charleston. His legacy as an old-fashioned, log-rolling, pork-barrel politician will be secure for all time.
Byrd’s legerdemain in fleecing the taxpayer may have made him a legend among West Virginia voters. But it is his problematic early career in politics, which he was never really able to live down, that made him such a puzzling figure. You may never be able to go home, but can anyone ever completely escape their past? It would seem that for some politicians of a particular political party, the answer depends entirely on how eager various constituencies are to forgive and forget. However, it would be too simple to ascribe Byrd’s electoral success over the decades with African American and even progressive voters to purely partisan factors. Unlike former Democrats-turned-southern-Republicans like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond (who never officially apologized for his past views on race), Byrd remained in the Democratic Party and embraced the agenda of racial “equality.” His apologies for past attitudes were oft-repeated, which seemed to imbue his mea culpas with a patina of sincerity.
As mere mortals, we are not vouchsafed the ability to peer into the souls of another and ascertain whether a change of heart on an issue like race is genuine or not. All we have to judge someone is their actions. In that respect, Byrd’s vote opposing the establishment of a federal holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. in 1983 raises legitimate questions about just how sincere he was in his turn away from the dark side of racial politics.
Then again, his vote against the MLK holiday is not that surprising. In the recent PBS documentary Roads to Memphis that follows the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and James Earl Ray those last few months before King’s assassination, Byrd was heard in an old TV clip lambasting King for the riot that broke out during the civil rights leader’s first visit to Memphis in support of the sanitation workers, all but calling him a coward:
If anybody is to be hurt of killed in the disorder which follows in the wake of his highly publicized marches and demonstrations, he apparently is going to be sure that it will be someone other than Martin Luther King. What happened yesterday in Memphis was totally uncalled for, just as Martin Luther King’s proposed march on Washington is uncalled for and unnecessary. And I hope that well-meaning negro leaders and individuals in the negro community in Washington will now take a new look at this man who gets other people into trouble and then takes off like a scared rabbit.
Complicating this picture of a King hater even further, Byrd supported the establishment of a memorial to MLK on the National Mall.
The Old South and the New South; Byrd’s life and career was a bridge that spanned the gulch between eras that many Americans of a certain age still find hard to fathom. In the period of less than a lifetime, America has gone from a country where a person of color could not get served a sandwich in a southern diner to electing an African American to the most powerful office in the world largely based on votes from white Americans. The velocity of thought this change represents is so profound that to this day, some refuse to accept it. It appears that Senator Byrd not only recognized the new reality, but embraced it. Whatever votes it may have cost him, the political calculus was a positive in the end.
Racism is not unknown in America, although it is not as nauseatingly a casual thing as it was when Robert Byrd began his political career. However, we do not have the late senator to thank for that. Whatever his change of heart, regardless of how sincere you believe his transmogrification from Kluxer to civil rights supporter, the fact is, he stood in the way of racial progress for nearly three decades of his five-decade political life, and profited politically for doing so. Whatever his contributions to the civic life of the United States, this singular fact will haunt whatever the legacy of Robert Byrd. It will also color the attitudes of future historians who must come to grips with the narrative of this extraordinarily complex man and the difficult times in which he lived.
“He was sorry, he said, for filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He was sorry for his membership in the Klan, his opposition to the nomination of the first black Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and his support for segregation. He was apparently sorry for a lot — as well he should have been.”
Proof? Not an iota. He was a disgusting criminal and eventually senile old monster. This is constitutional war. He is a casualty of war and a fine scalp. It’s a great pity his local TEA Party can’t claim him as their trophy but surely even such a gross psychotic leech as Byrd must have felt the lick of hellfire before his final extinction.
What a useless Post. You could have summed up his life with one sentence . He brought home the bacon and lived a long life.
Robert Byrd was one of the kings of pork politics and represented everything that was wrong with the Senate. For a guy like that to hold on to his seat like a pope is way beyond me and just shows that if you can screw the Federal government out of enough money for the folks back in your district, then they’ll keep sending you back again and again. Never mind that the money he was sending back to West Virginia belonged to people like you and me, people who DO NOT LIVE in West Virginia. Personally, I’m glad people like Byrd and Teddy Kennedy are gone. Maybe now we can actually bring some fiscal sanity back to Congress once the Conservatives (note I said Conservatives, NOT Republicans) get back into power. We can only hope.
Like their counterparts on the microscopic level, Political Amoeba dont evolve.
They adapt. They have no backbone, no vision, no ideas. A Klansman becomes
a Freedom Marcher becomes a Far Left Utopian. They divide
and contradict themselves to flow around any obstacle and reunite on the other side.
There are no facts, no hard ideas, no such thing as contradiction. There is only the quest for food in the form of power and money. They are the opposite of leaders. There is nothing they wont say or believe or do..they will impose any level of debt on the future because they wont be there, and spending gets
them elected now. They love mass immigration
of any group, the more the better..as long as they vote Democratic. Education projects that dont educate? Perfect! Bridges to nowhere? Who cares.
The country is dying because of people like Robert Byrd
I expect the apologia at CNN, at Kos, at all the vomitous and suppurating leftists site, stations and publications that exist like an outbreak on the body politic. I do not expect them here.
Despite the turn at the end, the feeble acknowledgement that Byrd will be tainted by the path he chose to tread, this piece wants to show a ‘better’ side to West Virginia’s Kleagle Senator. And there is none.
He was a staunch Klansman–not a ‘hanger on’, not an accidental member–he recruited for the Klan. He espoused their philosophy and made it attractive to others. He knew just how to exploit the fears and bigotries of potential recruits to get them to put on the hood. That was a monstrous talent–one that served him well later in life.
When he ‘left’ the Klan he did not give up his views. He fought integration and civil rights as if he stood before a fiery cross.
And we are asked to believe that he gave this up. We are asked to believe that this devout racist just woke up one day and decided he was wrong about the cause that had been so large in his life.
We are expected to ignore his votes against black justices(yes, he was against Thomas as well), his antipathy to the MLK holiday, his repeated–and quickly hushed up utterances.
He got lucky with Rice and Powell because the Party of Slavery is allowed to have policy issues with black pols, but the Party of Lincoln is accused of racism if they fight against a socialist who happens to be black.
This issue is not something that should ‘haunt’ Byrd’s legacy–it is something we should trumpet endlessly. It is a point that shows, without a doubt, that the Party of Racism holds it’s title dearly. That perhaps their ‘help’ of the black and minority communities should be seriously questioned. Why is the ghetto bigger today than when Democrats swept into inner city power?
It does not matter if we are called idiot or ideologue by those who would try to create good from evil.
Should we praise Hitler for the autobahn? For the People’s car? No.
Nor should we aid the furious whitewashing(whitewashing, he’d probably approve) of this dead racist. The left will do everything it can to make him an angel, why should we help?
Trumpet what he was or we’ll have people coming here in a few months(not years) talking about how good he was–remember, we already have hordes who believe that all the racists joined the anti-slavery, anti-racist Republican party when the Democrats became insufficientlt racist for them.
West Virginia is not a southern state.
That is true. West Virginia was formed in 1863, I believe, when it seceded from Virginia to establish its own identity. I don’t remember if it did so specifically to join the North, but I believe that is the history. I spent one summer in West Virginia as a high school kid and was impressed by the beauty, the poverty, the disparities between people and the love that people had for the state. That was in northern West Virginia, Buckhannon.
Wes Virginia only seceded from Virginia for a given value of “secede;” and, yes, it was explicitly for the purpose of joining the Union.
In 1861 the Yankee-occupied northwestern counties of Virginia had representatives appointed for them to attend a puppet “constitutional convention” assembled in Wheeling in opposition to the legitimate government in Richmond, which duly voted, as ordered, to ‘secede’ from the state and join the North.
Oh, and they received the specific promise that their slaves would *not* be emancipated.
Thanks for the info. I thought your last point was true, but wanted someone more knowledgeable to confirm this.
The West Virginians were truly the worst of both worlds: fans of slavery, and fans of Northern overlordship. And the more recent generations of swine who have enthusiastically gorged at Byrd’s trough of taxpayer funds show that the place’s moral tenor has not improved a whit. Virginia was well rid of them then, and is well rid of them now. Would that the U.S. were.
You nailed the point with this line:
“The real question is why most African Americans, liberals, and Democrats forgave him, believed him, and supported his election to the Senate time and time again.”
That is the real question. I have the answer. The answer is: for the left – ideology (and the ability to bring home pork) trumps everything. And I mean absolutely (no reservations) everything. There is no misconduct – no matter how grotesque – that will disqualify a political figure as long as he brings home the bacon – from the perspective of the hard left. You can run a gay prostitution ring your of your DC apartment – and remain in the house, drive a girl into a ditch and leave her to die – and remain in the Senate, get “serviced” by an intern in the oval office and remain a popular president and you can be a RECRUITER for the KKK and serve in congress longer than anyone in history. Keep in mind – none of these examples became pariahs in their party – they were (are) all leaders.
On the right – single inappropriate comments are career ending – on the left absolutely nothing matters if one toes the party line.
This isn’t about Byrd – this is about the complete lack on integrity that permits a Byrd. Almost every supporter of this guy (and the rest of the list above) concludes with “Well sure – but look at all the stuff he brought is!”
Byrd is the poster child for the fact that even if they consider themselves “Robin Hood” – there is still absolutely no honor among thieves.
If Strom Thurmond had been a member of the KKK I doubt his presence would have been tolerated in the Senate. Your article makes it sound like a Republican who has held questionable view on race is not a ‘complex’ person but a Democrat is. This bias is typical of your writing.
Screaming racism..to get political points, perks, and power is what the Far Left
has used to get Barrack Obama in power, and to hypnotize the American Public
into accepting the disaster of mass immigration. So why dont we use a little
backbone and intellectual honesty and not take this whole miserable game
to its next level? All it will do is empower the Left, rewrite history according to the Progressive Agenda, hand power over to racial groups other than white..that
have absolutely no intention of giving up racial identity and finally destroy what
little is left of the demographics and philosophy of traditional America.
And we are doing this in the name of “conservatism”? Conserving WHAT? The talking
points of the Democrat/Mass Media stranglehold on the country?
Robert Byrd followed the way of The Cross. Sometimes it was burning.
Condolences and sympathies to the Byrd family.
Now, having said that, #7GDT is spot on. Not only can the left do the things you mention and remain a leader of your party (Kennedy, Clinton & Byrd) but also keep doing them. Byrd figured out there was no future in remaining in a overt hate group like the KKK – he learned that it’s much better, and often more effective, to keep your racism covert and be more subtle about it, like keeping generations of minorities impoverished (and on the Democrat plantation), in part, by handing out barely subsistence-level welfare checks, subsidizing illegitimacy, providing housing, food, along with other vote-buying schemes, thus keeping them in line with the “we’ll take care of you” mentality. Despite Byrd’s apologies later, he remained a racist – he simply lied about it and then went about implementing & promulgating policies that were far more damaging to minorities than anything he could’ve done as a KKK member.
Byrd was just a consummate oportunist.I doubt he ever really gave up his racist views.The number of Byrd monuments in W.Va attest to the man`s outsized ego.
He won`t be missed.
If you have lived your whole life in Illinois and you get the urge to write an article about “The South,” please refrain.
“America and Robert Byrd grew to maturity together, changed together, and ultimately achieved a modicum of tolerance together.”
Pardon me while I puke.
So first Ruben the Race Baiter and now Rick the Maroon? PJM is rapidly becoming the Lindsay Graham of internet sites.
Utterly disappointed in you, Rick, for posting nonsense like this. Why did Democrats “forgive” Byrd his silly KKK indiscretions? Gee what a fantastic and deep question! Let’s see, why do Democrats think that Clinton perjuring himself, Obama’s 20 year relationship with a racist anti-semite preacher, Gore taking money on video from undercover Chinese disguised as monks, or Marion Barry smoking crack with a hooker are all OK? The answer is because all of those politicians have a “D” at the end of their name. That’s all there is to say about that, but somehow you stretch it into a ludicrous two-page post.
You’re sitting here waxing nostalgic about one of the most corrupt legislators in our country’s history while his partners in crime continue to destroy everything around us.
Nothing but contempt for you, Ricky Bobby, but I hope you get a lot of mileage from the comments in this post when you show them to all of your moderate buddies like Brooks and Frum as proof of how enlightened you are.
the same reasons that Repulican voted for Srom Thurmond
A reasonable column with the predictable unreasonable responses.
West Virginians had the liberty to vote for Byrd and they did. They voted for what they perceived to be in their own best interests. Many of you, evidently think that they should have voted for someone else. He was an odd guy and does not evoke a whole lot of passion in me, either way, but he certainly gets many here worked up.
Maybe someone here can take the time to explain to me the essential difference between Bobby and Strom. Strom was a small government ex-racist and Bobby was a big government ex-racist. Does that cover it?
I do know that it is unlikely that any Dems throwing a tribute for Bobby would have said, “You know, Bobby, if we had just followed your views back when you wore a sheet, we might all be better off right now.” Why is that? Why would Lott say what he said, but a Dem would not say something similar for Bobby?
Dwight: that is exactly what I posted right before you.
GDT: you are just about the sanest Conservative here.. can you jupm in here please?
I can hear Rev. Wright’s “U. S. of K.K.K.A.” echoing in my head as I type.
No Republican congressman or Senator was ever a member of the Klan after 1960, and CERTAINLY not before 1960– because the Klan was a Democrat party organization, of which Harry Truman was a member, among other luminaries. FDR nominated Hugo Black for the supreme court, and Black rose in politics through his service to the Klan as a lawyer defending lynchers. Black apologized later for being IN the Klan, but FDR never apologized for NOMINATING him.
More republicans by percentage voted yes on civil rights in ’64 than did democrats. When Wallace lost the ’68 primary, he did NOT rush off and become a Republican– he joined the American Independent party and siphoned off enough Democrats to get Nixon elected easily over the hard leftist Humphrey. James Earl Ray, killer of Dr King, was a Wallace campaign activist. In ’57, Senator JFK voted against Eisenhower’s civil rights act. In ’64, Albert Gore Sr. voted against the CRA along with Byrd.
This whole business of ‘racist republicans’ and the ‘migration from democrat to republican’ of southern white racists is a total crock. In 1976, when Carter was running in the Dem primary, Jesse Jackson called him “a throwback to Hitlerian racism”. White southern democrats remained racists long after the CRA, and did NOT become Republicans.
LBJ, the old segregationist, played the game well. He went from racist straight to political opportunist seizing black votes. He told two Dem senators aboard Air Force One, “I’ll have them n***rs votin’ democrat for the next 200 years!” Cynical, dreadful. He was cursing Dr King even in 1967, calling him that “go**amn n***r preacher”, complaining about King’s opposition to the vietnam war.
Byrd was responsible, indirectly, for King’s death. When King left Memphis in spring of 1968, Byrd went off on him, calling coward and troublemaker for stirring up the protest marches and then leaving. King, hearing this, set out to prove Byrd wrong and returned to Memphis– where Ray shot him.
This is one more attempt by Moran to show his sensitivity, moderation and center–something (left or right, I do not know exactly)outlook. An earlier poster chastized Moran for writing about the South he doesn’t know squat about, and about a Northern state with a Senator that knew exactly where his bread was going to be buttered. That was on the mark. Byrd will be remembered in WV, if only for the stone clutter bearing his name.
The man is dead. RIP
Thank you, Rick Moran, for providing a shining example how among Democrats, party unity trumps all else. ALL else.
Trent Lott says some kind things about someone at his birthday party, and he gets run out of town on a rail.
Robert KKK Byrd says he’d rather “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,” that “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.” and “There are white niggers. I’ve seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I’m going to use that word….” and he gets praised as a hero.
Timing is everything. Would you care to put dates on the statements you conflate?
Robert Byrd, Grand Kliegel, R.I.P.
“He once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan, what does that mean? I’ll tell you what it means. He was a country boy from the hills and hollows from West Virginia. He was trying to get elected. And maybe he did something he shouldn’t have done and he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that’s what a good person does. There are no perfect people. There are certainly no perfect politicians.”
Thus spake the impeached and disgraced 42nd president of the United States, despoiler of the Oval Office, known predator, admitted liar William Jefferson (Blythe) Clinton at the obsequies of the late Senator Robert Carlyle Byrd of West Virginia.
We should all allow the dead to rest in peace. However, we also should not whitewash their lives with lies dismissing as “a fleeting association” KKK Byrd’s commitment to that hate group.
He joined in 1942, at age 24, was elected to lead his KKK chapter, and went on to earn the titles of Grand Kliegel and Exalted Cyclops before he says he resigned in 1943.
He wrote in 1944, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1766)
Bill Clinton said, of Byrd’s choice to join the Klan, “He was a country boy from the hills and hollows from West Virginia. He was trying to get elected….” What about all the country boys from West Virginia who chose NOT to join the Klan?
But Clinton wasn’t done:
“And maybe he did something he shouldn’t have done…” Maybe?
The double-standard boggles the mind.