Byrd did change

Opinion: July 9, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By David Love

McClatchy-Tribune

When Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., was laid to rest in Columbia Gardens Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday, his bigoted past was interred with him. In the long span of his life, he demonstrated that people have the power to change and move beyond their hate.

At age 24, Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan. His rhetoric back then, in the 1940s, was appalling. “I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side,” he vowed. “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.”

Filibuster

Like other bigoted lawmakers, Byrd tried his hardest to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and did so for 14 hours on the Senate floor. And he opposed the 1965 Voting Rights Act (though he favored the 1968 Civil Rights Act).

Furthermore, the senator opposed the nomination of Thurgood Marshall, the nation’s first black Supreme Court justice. Byrd even went to then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover — who participated in ruining the careers and lives of many black civil rights leaders — to see if Marshall had any ties to communists that could torpedo his nomination.

And yet, Byrd evolved; he changed for the good. He apologized for his intolerant past and declared that he had been wrong.

Byrd was the longest serving member of Congress in U.S. history. With 18,000 votes cast and a career attendance record of 98 percent, he had a proud record of achievement.

David A. Love is a writer for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services