Shortly after I had learned of the passing of Senator Robert Byrd
of West Virginia I came across his obituary in the New York
Times. The headline read:
Robert Byrd, Respected Voice of the Senate, Dies
at 92
It is worth noting that Byrd died almost seven years to the
day when Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina passed away.
Naturally, I was curious as to what the headline in the New
York Times read
when he left this mortal coil:
Strom Thurmond, Foe of Integration, Dies at
100
It is also worth noting that both obituaries were written
by Adam Clymer. Now in fairness to Mr. Clymer, it was very likely
not he who chose those headlines. But the fact that Byrd and
Thurmond were described so very differently in death strongly
reflects the liberal bias of the Times. Had Thurmond
remained a Democrat, would the Times have summed him up
as a foe of integration?
Now there is no dispute that Thurmond was a foe of
integration. Indeed, Thurmond once spoke on
the floor of the Senate for more than 24 hours in opposition to
the Civil Rights Act of 1957 late in August of that year. Among
many other things, Thurmond railed against Brown v. Board
of Education; the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision which
desegregated public schools. Thurmond
described Brown as “the outstanding judicial blunder
of all time.” Understandably, this would deservedly earn Thurmond
the enmity of African Americans.
Yet Robert Byrd could equally be described as a foe of
integration. During the early 1940s, Byrd was not only a member
of the Ku Klux Klan he recruited
others to join their cause. Say what you will about Thurmond, but
he never joined the Klan. In 1938, when Thurmond served in the
South Carolina State Senate, he spoke out against lynching and
said
that the Klan stood for “the most abominable type of
lawlessness.”
Byrd would later oppose President Truman’s integration of
the Armed Forces. He made it clear he would not fight for his
country “with a Negro by my side.” But there was more:
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.
Although it was the integration of the Armed Forces that
would in part prompt Thurmond to run against Truman in the 1948
Presidential election, he was never known to have
uttered the vicious kind of language Byrd used to describe
African Americans.
Seven years after Thurmond’s filibuster, Byrd stood up and
spoke on the Senate floor for fourteen straight hours against
the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now Byrd might not have gone on the
whole day like Thurmond did, but it was a filibuster against
civil rights just the same.
Yet black civil rights leaders have been remarkably
forgiving of Byrd. Upon learning of Byrd’s death, Coston Davis,
the President of the NAACP Branch in Charleston, said,
“I realize that people make mistakes when they’re young.… I
think we’ve all done things we’ve regretted… these are one of the
things I know he regretted.”
Just like the time when Byrd twice
uttered the phrase “white niggers” when he was a young man of
83 in a 2001 interview with the late Tony Snow on the Fox News
Channel. He would, of course, later regret the remark and all was
forgiven.
So why isn’t the same forgiveness extended to Thurmond? He
did hire an African American staffer named Tom Moss (the
first Southern Senator to do so), supported the renewal of the
Voting Rights Act and voted in favor of honoring the birthday of
Martin Luther King, Jr. However, this would never be sufficient
for liberal media elites. Following his 99th birthday, John
Ibbitson of the Globe & Mail wrote of
Thurmond, “Like a Nazi who changes into a suit, he began hiring
blacks in his office, and supporting their causes.”
The argument is that Robert Byrd
repeatedly
apologized for his involvement with the Klan and for his 1964
filibuster. Apparently, Thurmond’s unpardonable sin was not
having formally apologized for his past. Liberals like Timothy Noah of
Slate can dismiss Thurmond’s later outreach to African
Americans as “shrewd accommodations” if they please. But what if
Thurmond had made a formal apology? Would Noah, Ibbitson, or any
other liberal have accepted it any more than they would have
accepted his vote to establish Martin Luther King, Jr. Day? And
here I thought actions spoke louder than words.
Yet when we come to the end of our lives we will be judged
both by our words and deeds. Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond could
both accurately be described as having been foes of integration.
Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond, as the two longest serving
members of the U.S. Senate, could also both accurately be
described as having been respected voices of that body.
Therefore, at the end of the day, Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond
should be remembered for both bad and good.
