Block, Siteadmin, SkipCaptcha, Upload, Automoderated users, delete, edit, move, nsTeam2RO, nsTeam2RW, nsTeam2_talkRO, nsTeam2_talkRW, protect, rollback, Administrators, template
293,828
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 28:
Line 28: − During the 1940s, he was involved in the [[Ku Klux Klan]] where he reached the rank of Exalted Cyclops, the leader of the local chapter of the organization.<ref>Pianin, Eric. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/18/AR2005061801105_pf.html A Senator's Shame: Byrd, in His New Book, Again Confronts Early Ties to KKK]. Washington Post, 2005-06-19, pp. A01</ref> He repeatedly expressed his desire for the Klan to expand to its previous size and power, once remarking in a letter that "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." <ref>King, Colbert I. [http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2003/commentary/works/king2.html Sen. Byrd: The view from Darrell's barbershop], Washington Post, March 2, 2002</ref>+
→Klan membership: clarify
==Klan membership==
==Klan membership==
Byrd first joined the [[Ku Klux Klan]] in the 1940s and attained the rank of Exalted Cyclops, the leader of the local chapter of the organization.<ref>Pianin, Eric. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/18/AR2005061801105_pf.html A Senator's Shame: Byrd, in His New Book, Again Confronts Early Ties to KKK]. Washington Post, 2005-06-19, pp. A01</ref> He repeatedly expressed his desire for the Klan to expand to its previous size and power, once remarking in a letter that "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." <ref>King, Colbert I. [http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2003/commentary/works/king2.html Sen. Byrd: The view from Darrell's barbershop], Washington Post, March 2, 2002</ref>
Byrd commented on the 1945 controversy raging over the idea of racially integrating the military. In his book When ''Jim Crow Met John Bull'', Graham Smith referred to a letter written that year by Byrd, when he was 28 years old, to [[segregationist]] Senator Theodore Bilbo of [[Mississippi]], in which Byrd vowed never to fight:
Byrd commented on the 1945 controversy raging over the idea of racially integrating the military. In his book When ''Jim Crow Met John Bull'', Graham Smith referred to a letter written that year by Byrd, when he was 28 years old, to [[segregationist]] Senator Theodore Bilbo of [[Mississippi]], in which Byrd vowed never to fight: