Published: June 07, 2009 11:13 pm      

Sen. Robert C. Byrd: Personality of the South

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a series of articles in recognition of June 19, 2009, JUNETEENTH celebration when Blacks in Texas received word from Gen. Granger in 1865 that they had been free since the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863.



“This is a fateful decision – it involves a precedent in this country. It involves the blood of our fighting men and women. It is too momentous, too far-reaching of a decision to be signed, sealed and delivered at 10:15 a.m. this morning…”

— Sen. Robert C. Byrd,

State of West Virginia



More than six years have passed since the oldest and longest serving member of the Senate in its history stood on the Senate floor and issued a plea as his colleagues debated a measure authorizing President George W. Bush to attack Iraq.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-West Virginia), 91, a master of Senate rules and procedures and a fierce protector of congressional privileges, issued a plea: “Give the Senate more time,” according to Julie Hirschfield of the Baltimore Sun.

Further, he warned that the Senate was being pushed into making a premature decision. Currently, his views about the war are still being assessed as the War in Iraq continues. The continuing conflict in Iraq seems to have vindicated the position he took about the war.

When I arose on Tuesday morning, I heard the sad news that Sen. Byrd had been hospitalized. Byrd, the longest serving senator, was reported to have a Staph infection. He has become extremely frail in recent years. To paraphrase a familiar saying: “the old gray senator is not what he used to be.”

The senator from West Virginia remains the Senate’s president pro tempore, a largely symbolic post generally reserved for the longest-serving member of the Senate.

A glance backwards during the past five years reveals a man that looked beyond politics and viewed events through wider lenses that stretched far into the future of this nation. He is known for his filibustering. After more than 50 years in the United States Senate, including his 12-year tenure as the Democratic leader, Byrd perceives his role as “protector and defender of the Constitution, a guardian of its history and traditions,” says Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times (4-3-05). However, in more ways than one, Senator Robert C. Byrd is an example of “change” – the kind of change envisioned by Senator Barack Obama whom he endorsed for the presidency.

He has a reputation for being an authority on senate rules and procedures and, as such, he is described as being an old man that “carries the banner for his party.”

But according to many observers, his allegiance to his party combined with his capabilities for filibustering seem to irritate the opposition, particularly what some has referred to as Christian conservatives and the religious right.

Christian conservatives, many of whom pledged allegiance to President George W. Bush, attempted to discredit him by reminding us of his “checkered, racist past that included his serving as a one time member of the Ku Klux Klan and his filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

A Republican Senatorial Committee was alleged to have sent out a stream of “Byrd Watching” news releases to discredit his opposition to the War in Iraq.

As he continues to function in the twilight of his life, much can be said about not only his willingness to change but his ability to put his evil doings behind him. A lifelong Democrat, he did not leave the party as his views shifted from social conservatism to a more liberal stance, as his views on race changed over time. He joined the Ku Klux Klan when he was 24 yEARS old in 1942. His local chapter unanimously elected him Exalted Cyclops. In 1944, he wrote to segregationists Mississippi Sen. Theodore Bilbo:

“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…”

He opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a move he says he also regrets.

Despite the 83-day filibuster in the Senate, both parties in Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Act, and President Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas signed the bill into law.

In 1997, he told an interviewer he would encourage young people to become involved in politics, but to “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…”

As late as 2005, Byrd, a son of the South and reared in the coal-mining region of West Virginia, acknowledged: “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.”

Considering his actions in recent years, he appears to be serious — more serious than the late Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. His endorsement of President Barack Obama seemed to be unprecedented if viewed from the perspective of his allegiance to the old ways of the South.

Without question, Byrd then was an admitted protégé of Sen. Richard B. Russell of Georgia, and he followed the paths of many Southerners who were adamant about maintaining “segregation forever.”

His allegiance to the past induced the kind of bitterness that can be attributed to Southerners fighting a Civil War to defend the evil system of segregation and discrimination. But changes in his attitudes toward segregation and African- Americans will be part of his lasting legacy.





Naomi W. Ledé is a retired Senior Research Scientist, Distinguished Professor and University Administrator. She serves as President/Chair of the Board of the Samuel Walker Houston Museum and Cultural Center, Huntsville, Texas.