Byrd joined the
Ku Klux Klan when he was 24 in 1942. His local chapter unanimously elected him the top officer of their unit.
[8]
According to Byrd, a Klan official told him, "You have a talent for leadership, Bob... The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation." Byrd later recalled, "suddenly lights flashed in my mind! Someone important had recognized my abilities! I was only 23 or 24 years old, and the thought of a political career had never really hit me. But strike me that night, it did."
[8] Byrd held the titles
Kleagle [[recruiter) and
Exalted Cyclops.
[8]
In 1944, Byrd wrote to
segregationist Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo:
[14]
“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.”
— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo [[D-MS), 1944,
When running for the
United States House of Representatives in 1952, he announced "After about a year, I became disinterested, quit paying my dues, and dropped my membership in the organization. During the nine years that have followed, I have never been interested in the Klan." He said he had joined the Klan because he felt it offered excitement and was
anti-communist.
[8] However, in 1946 or 1947 he wrote a letter to a
Grand Wizard stating, "
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."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd
