×

Racism and Senator Byrd

Christ said “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” (Matthew 6:14).

All of us are a product of our culture. Sen. Robert C. Byrd was born in North Carolina and raised in West Virginia. During that period of segregation, most white people were prejudiced against Blacks, Catholics, Jews and homosexuals — the targets of the Ku Klux Klan. As a leader, he organized and was the Exalted Cyclops of a KKK chapter in Sophia, W.Va. He was never a “Grand Dragon,” and only a Klan member for about a year.

He began his federal career as a member of the House of Representatives in 1952, then was a U.S. Senator for 51 years, from 1958 until his death in 2010 at the age of 92. As a senator, his racism was evident in his opposition to much legislation to include the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. His racism cannot be denied.

All of us change and our thinking evolves as we go through life. Byrd hired one of the first Black congressional aides on Capitol Hill in 1959 and initiated the racial integration of the U.S. Capitol Police for the first time since Reconstruction. In a C-SPAN interview, he said the death of his grandson in a 1982 auto accident radically changed his views. The profound grief he felt made him realize that African-Americans loved their children as much as he loved his own.

In 1983, he voted, unlike many Democrats, to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday.

In a 2001 interview, Byrd said of race relations:

“They’re much, much better than they’ve ever been in my lifetime … I think we talk about race too much. I think those problems are largely behind us. I just think we talk so much about it that we create somewhat of an illusion. I think we try to have good will. My old mom told me, ‘Robert, you can’t go to Heaven if you hate anybody.’ We practice that.”

Robert Byrd evolved, changing for the good. He apologized for his intolerant past.

In the end, the political legacy of Robert Byrd went from admitting his former membership in the KKK to winning the accolades of the NAACP. In 2005, Byrd sponsored a bill allocating an additional $10 million for the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C.

When Byrd died, in 2010, the NAACP released a statement saying that over the course of his life he “became a champion for civil rights and liberties” and “came to consistently support the NAACP civil rights agenda.”

Although his name is usually used with the terms KKK and racist, should we not look to where his beliefs evolved? He acknowledged and repented. “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”

Lance K. Hickel

U.S. Army LTC (retired)

Parkersburg

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today