West Virginia Democrats Silent About Memorials To KKK-Supporting Colleague
Unlike the long-dead figures whose statues and other honorifics have been assailed in recent weeks, Robert Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan organizer, remains basically untouchable.
Steve Miller
By Steve Miller
July 11, 2020
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — While monuments and building names said to be stained by racism are being erased across the country, one former Ku Klux Klan organizer remains virtually untouchable.
The late Sen. Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat and Senate majority leader who organized a Klan chapter in 1941 and filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is celebrated in the state, his name gracing over three dozen public works projects, including two federal courthouses, a dam on the Ohio border, libraries, community centers, roads, bridges, schools, and several university buildings throughout the state.
Byrd’s still-hallowed legacy came into question this month when tiny Bethany College, in the state’s narrow Northern Panhandle between Ohio and Pennsylvania, removed Byrd’s name from its health center. In a statement, school President Tamara Rodenberg said, “The last few weeks, and well before the conversations and calls for change took hold, we recognized as a campus that the name of our Robert C. Byrd Health Center created divisiveness and pain for members of Bethany community, both past and present.â€
Twenty-nine of the college’s 35 board officers are from outside West Virginia. The move came even though a petition effort on Change.org failed to achieve its goal of 1,000 signatures.
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https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/11/west-virginia-democrats-silent-about-memorials-to-kkk-supporting-colleague/
