Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 9.07 Social Sciences, Race and Ethnicity
Presentation #1 Title
Robert C. Byrd, Civil Rights, and the Southern Bloc
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
At the time of his death in 2010, West Virginia Senator Robert C. Byrd was a hero to many political liberals. There was a time, however, when Byrd was known among some of his constituents as “the most rabid racist in the U.S. Congress.”[1] In 1964, Byrd became the mouthpiece of southern recalcitrance, staging a fourteen-hour filibuster of that year’s Civil Rights Act. Like other members of the “Southern bloc,” Byrd called the Act unconstitutional, and apologists have attributed his filibuster to his reverence for the Constitution. Yet before 1964, Byrd had rarely decried federal tyranny in defense of “states’ rights.” He often argued that the federal government had a duty to help solve social problems, and he had supported two previous civil rights bills. In this paper, I argue that it was Byrd’s anti-Communism—not his strict Constitutionalism—that led to the filibuster. Byrd inhabited a political category not often recognized today, that of the socially conservative big-government liberal. Like other social conservatives, Byrd saw Communism as a threat to American culture, and he believed Communist ideas and tactics were at work among civil rights activists. Yet at a time when many social conservatives were making allies of laissez-faire economists and criticizing federal spending, Byrd staged a political balancing act to gain what he most desired: federal aid that would save West Virginia from economic ruin.
[1] “Gov. Smith is Asked to Revoke Byrd,” Parkersburg News, August, 17, 1967.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Colin Reynolds is a Ph.D. Candidate at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, focusing anti-Communist activists and their political influence during the 1960s and 1970s. He is originally from Huntington, West Virginia.
Robert C. Byrd, Civil Rights, and the Southern Bloc
Harris Hall 234
At the time of his death in 2010, West Virginia Senator Robert C. Byrd was a hero to many political liberals. There was a time, however, when Byrd was known among some of his constituents as “the most rabid racist in the U.S. Congress.”[1] In 1964, Byrd became the mouthpiece of southern recalcitrance, staging a fourteen-hour filibuster of that year’s Civil Rights Act. Like other members of the “Southern bloc,” Byrd called the Act unconstitutional, and apologists have attributed his filibuster to his reverence for the Constitution. Yet before 1964, Byrd had rarely decried federal tyranny in defense of “states’ rights.” He often argued that the federal government had a duty to help solve social problems, and he had supported two previous civil rights bills. In this paper, I argue that it was Byrd’s anti-Communism—not his strict Constitutionalism—that led to the filibuster. Byrd inhabited a political category not often recognized today, that of the socially conservative big-government liberal. Like other social conservatives, Byrd saw Communism as a threat to American culture, and he believed Communist ideas and tactics were at work among civil rights activists. Yet at a time when many social conservatives were making allies of laissez-faire economists and criticizing federal spending, Byrd staged a political balancing act to gain what he most desired: federal aid that would save West Virginia from economic ruin.
[1] “Gov. Smith is Asked to Revoke Byrd,” Parkersburg News, August, 17, 1967.
