"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 (DEM-MS), 1944
— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (DEM-MS), 1944
Today, Senator Robert C. Byrd was reunited with his BFF, Byron de la Beckwith, and other fellow dues-paying Klansmen, President Harry Truman and Supreme Court justice Hugo Black.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United_States_politics