Byrd is a former KKK Grand Dragon. I assumed the average reader would know this.
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Sen. Robert Byrd, one-time KKK member, backs Barack Obama
Sen. Robert Byrd's endorsement today of Barack Obama was both oddly timed and illustrative of the state of the Democratic presidential race.
latimesblogs.latimes.com
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In the early 1940s, a politically ambitious butcher from West Virginia named Bob Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to form a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. After Byrd had collected the $10 joining fee and $3 charge for a robe and hood from every applicant, the "Grand Dragon" for the mid-Atlantic states came down to tiny Crab Orchard, W.Va., to officially organize the chapter.
As Byrd recalls now, the Klan official, Joel L. Baskin of Arlington, Va., was so impressed with the young Byrd's organizational skills that he urged him to go into politics. "The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation," Baskin said.
West Virginia Democrat Robert C. Byrd, in his Senate office last week, has written a new book about his half-century in elective office. A fiddler and a student of history, Byrd has served twice as Senate majority leader. (By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)
Sen. Robert C. Byrd: Spanning 10 Presidencies
Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) has spend a half-century in office.
The young Klan leader went on to become one of the most powerful and enduring figures in modern Senate history. Throughout a half-century on Capitol Hill, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) has twice held the premier leadership post in the Senate, helped win...
washingtonpost.com |
