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Robert C. Byrd: A Featured Biography. The longest serving senator in history, Robert C. Byrd gained his higher education in the United States Senate. Rising from an impoverished childhood in the coalfields of West Virginia, Byrd entered public office in 1947 without a college degree.
Robert Byrd was born on November 20, 1917, as Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr. in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to Cornelius Calvin Sale and his wife Ada Mae (Kirby). When he was ten months old, his mother died on Armistice Day [14] during the 1918 flu pandemic .
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- Who Was Robert C. Byrd?
- Early Life
- Entry Into Politics
- Anti-Civil Rights Record
- Changing Views
- Legacy and Death
Senator Robert Byrd was the longest-serving senator and the longest-serving member in the history of the United States Congress. He filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and supported the Vietnam War, but later backed civil rights measures and criticized the Iraq War. He was briefly a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s, but later left...
Robert Byrd was born Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr. on November 20, 1917, in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina. Barely a year later, Sale's mother died in the influenza epidemic. As per her final wishes, Sale's father sent him to live with aunt and uncle Vlurma and Titus Byrd. They adopted Sale, renaming him Robert Carlyle Byrd, and moved to a farm in t...
His allegiance to the KKK, however, did help push Byrd into the political arena. Encouraged by the grand dragon of his KKK branch, Byrd ran on the Democratic ticket for West Virginia's House of Delegates in 1946. During his campaign, Byrd carried his fiddle in his briefcase and played at each stop on his speaking tour. His skill with the instrument...
Byrd's early votes in Congress reflected his roots in Southern anti-Black, anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic teachings. Byrd initially denounced civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.as a "self-seeking rabble rouser," and he worked in opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a landmark law that removed many barriers for Black Americans. He also vo...
In 1994, Byrd, who had by then written several award-winning volumes on Senate history, earned an honorary bachelor's degree from Marshall University. Byrd was 77 years old at the time. During this time, Byrd began to change his political views to reflect more traditionally Democratic leanings, eventually became a leading backer of civil rights and...
Byrd died on June 28, 2010, at the age of 92. During his tenure, Byrd was elected to more leadership positions than any other Senator in history. At the time of his death, he was the highest-ranking Senator in the majority party, known as the President pro tempore. He served as the senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was the Chair...
In between high school and his undergraduate degree, though, Byrd enrolled in law school and, after ten years of classes taken while also serving as a Member of Congress, Senator Byrd earned his law degree from American University in 1963.
May 2, 2024 · Although he did not complete his bachelor’s degree from Marshall University until 1994, he earned a law degree (1963) from American University in Washington, D.C., while serving in the Senate. In the early 1940s Byrd organized a local Ku Klux Klan chapter, although years later he had a change of heart and became a strong supporter of civil rights.
May 17, 2022 · While working as a butcher in the early 1940s, Byrd formed a new chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Sophia, West Virginia. In his 2005 book, Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields, Byrd recalled how his ability to quickly recruit 150 of his friends to the group impressed a top Klan official who told him, “You have a talent for ...
Robert Byrd’s education began in a two-room schoolhouse. He was the valedictorian of the class of 1934 in Mark Twain High School in Stotesbury, Raleigh County . He married his high school sweetheart, Erma Ora James, in 1937.
