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Politics : Mainstream Politics and Economics
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To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (7314)1/23/2012 1:09:05 PM
From: koan  Read Replies (3) of 85487
 
<<Senator Robert Byrd was a respected Democrat....oh, and a KKK member>

He repented.

Byrd joined with other Southern and border-state Democrats to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1964, [27] personally filibustering the bill for 14 hours, a move he later said he regretted. [28] Despite an 83-day filibuster in the Senate, both parties in Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Act, and President Johnson signed the bill into law. [29] Byrd also opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 but voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1968. In 2005, Byrd told The Washington Post that his membership in the Baptist church led to a change in his views. In the opinion of one reviewer, Byrd, like other Southern and border-state Democrats, came to realize that he would have to temper "his blatantly segregationist views" and move to the Democratic Party mainstream if he wanted to play a role nationally. [9]

Because of his opposition to desegregation, Byrd was a member of the wing of the Democratic Party that opposed desegregation and civil rights imposed by the federal government. However, despite his early career in the KKK, Byrd was linked to such senators as John C. Stennis, J. William Fulbright and George Smathers, who based their segregationist positions on their view of states' rights in contrast to senators like James Eastland, who held a reputation as a committed racist.
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