Some 56 public buildings, highways, bridges, sports complexes, schools, etc., in West Virginia are named after former Democrat Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, who served his state for 51 years. Byrd also attained the high ranks of Kleagle and Grand Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan.
He is perhaps best remembered for having filibustered against passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Will the people of West Virginia and civil rights leaders demand that these structures dedicated to the memory of Byrd be renamed?
Many Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, are calling for the removal or relocation of statues honoring Confederate military and political leaders. Lest we forget, those Southern leaders, like Byrd, were members of the post-Civil-War Democratic Party, which vehemently opposed expanding civil and economic rights to blacks. And they were the same people who erected and celebrated those likenesses in bronze or stone.
Isn’t the spokeswoman for the Democratic Party a little late in calling for the removal of those symbols of slavery?
Walter J. Eno
Scarborough
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