I will not forget how long the Democratic Party allowed this person to dominate its politics. I will not forget how long they papered over his past. I will not forget how long they papered over his ‘pork’. I will not forget how they allowed a cheap political opportunist, with a paperback constitution in his back pocket, to jump into the spotlight and stay there!
I was appalled at how black people just smiled at this person (I’m really really trying my best to be very nice here…this is a eulogy after all…) and allowed him to somehow put his history on civil rights into the past (http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jul/03/pork-or-progress-either-way-byrd-changed-wva/).
Kind of like letting George Wallace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace) and Asa Carter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Earl_Carter) put their civil rights histories into the past!
(Black people, you’d better wake up: YOU’RE BEING TRAMPLED UPON!! You should always hold in your minds the Massachusetts state moto-- Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem!)
Lest you forget, I borrow, for your edification, a passage from the mighty Wikipedia:
Ku Klux Klan
Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1942 when he was 24. His local chapter unanimously elected him the top officer of its unit.[10]
According to Byrd, a Klan official told him, "You have a talent for leadership, Bob ... The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation." Byrd later recalled, "suddenly lights flashed in my mind! Someone important had recognized my abilities! I was only 23 or 24 years old, and the thought of a political career had never really hit me. But strike me that night, it did."[10] Byrd held the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops.[10]
In 1944, Byrd wrote to segregationist Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo:[17]
“I shall never fight in the armed forces 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.”
— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944
In 1946 or 1947 Byrd wrote a letter to a Grand Wizard stating, "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 nation.".[19] However, when running for the United States House of Representatives in 1952, he announced "After about a year, I became disinterested, quit paying my dues, and dropped my membership in the organization. During the nine years that have followed, I have never been interested in the Klan." He said he had joined the Klan because he felt it offered excitement and was anti-communist.[10]
In 1997, Byrd told an interviewer he would encourage young people to become involved in politics but also: "Be sure you avoid the Ku Klux Klan. Don't get that albatross around your neck. Once you've made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena."[20] In his last autobiography, Byrd explained that he was a KKK member because he "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."[21] Byrd also said, in 2005,
“I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened. ”
— Robert C. Byrd
There you have it, white suprematism was just an albatross around his neck. For blacks though, white suprematism remains a noose around their necks! And so, after a long and controversial service, Robert Byrd is gone from this world, but not forgotten (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/us/03byrd.html), and the Democratic Party has become a KKK Freezone! May it continue to purge its ranks!
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