Bull Burger
Well-known member
Former Ku Klux Klansman
Sen. Robert Byrd said Thursday that he decided to leave the anti-black terrorist group in 1946 after becoming a born-again Christian, adding that the only reason he used the "N"-word in a 2001 television interview is because he'd heard black leaders say it.
Asked why he left the Klan, Byrd told Fox News Channel's Alan Colmes: "My wife and I, we're born-again Christians. ... We were baptized in the Old Church Yard at Crab Orchard Baptist Church in 1946. ... That changed my thinking in many ways."
"Time, reflection and the teachings of the Bible" helped him cut his ties with the Klan, said Byrd - where he served as Grand Kleagle and was paid $10 a head to recruit like-minded racists willing to lynch blacks.
Asked why - 55 years after he abandoned the hate group - he used the "N"-word twice during an interview on "Fox News Sunday," the ex-Klansman explained:
"Well, I have heard many people use it. I have heard black leaders use it. I've heard white leaders use it."
Byrd told Colmes that the racist slur "meant nothing" to him, except to describe someone who was ignorant.
The West Virginia Democrat insisted that he'd always tried "to do the right thing."
But he didn't explain why he decided to lead the filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, or championed the renaming of the Senate's main office after Georgia Sen. Richard B. Russell, whose chief accomplishment was blocking the passage of anti-lynching legislation in the 1930s and '40s.
Instead Byrd insisted it was time to close the book on the earlier chapters of his life, saying: "I was wrong, as many young men are wrong today, even when they join groups. That's all in the past."
Sen. Robert Byrd said Thursday that he decided to leave the anti-black terrorist group in 1946 after becoming a born-again Christian, adding that the only reason he used the "N"-word in a 2001 television interview is because he'd heard black leaders say it.
Asked why he left the Klan, Byrd told Fox News Channel's Alan Colmes: "My wife and I, we're born-again Christians. ... We were baptized in the Old Church Yard at Crab Orchard Baptist Church in 1946. ... That changed my thinking in many ways."
"Time, reflection and the teachings of the Bible" helped him cut his ties with the Klan, said Byrd - where he served as Grand Kleagle and was paid $10 a head to recruit like-minded racists willing to lynch blacks.
Asked why - 55 years after he abandoned the hate group - he used the "N"-word twice during an interview on "Fox News Sunday," the ex-Klansman explained:
"Well, I have heard many people use it. I have heard black leaders use it. I've heard white leaders use it."
Byrd told Colmes that the racist slur "meant nothing" to him, except to describe someone who was ignorant.
The West Virginia Democrat insisted that he'd always tried "to do the right thing."
But he didn't explain why he decided to lead the filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, or championed the renaming of the Senate's main office after Georgia Sen. Richard B. Russell, whose chief accomplishment was blocking the passage of anti-lynching legislation in the 1930s and '40s.
Instead Byrd insisted it was time to close the book on the earlier chapters of his life, saying: "I was wrong, as many young men are wrong today, even when they join groups. That's all in the past."
