 "Photo: AP Photo")
In the early hours of the morning, the United States lost one of its strongest voices.
West Virginia Sen. Robert C. Byrd, 92, died Monday after being admitted to the hospital last week.
The nation's longest serving senator received a flood of well-wishes from colleagues and state officials.
Like most public figures, however, they were being met just as quickly with those uncertain of the praise being heaped on him.
Friends, remarking on Facebook and Twitter, were puzzled as to why Byrd was being idolized after a somewhat checkered history.
The senator's past is somewhat shocking when first discovered, but it hasn't been hidden from anyone.
If you don't know much of Byrd, you probably know him as West Virginia's prime provider of federal pork and as the namesake of many highways and buildings.
You may know he grew up in a hardscrabble, rural Appalachian life – the fuel for much of his political fire.
At a young age, Byrd discovered his father had been a member of a public group that paraded wearing white hoods – the Ku Klux Klan.
After being told by a high authority in the organization, Byrd said he was caught up by others noticing his leadership abilities.
In his 2005 autobiography, "Child of the Appalachian Coalfields," Byrd said he became involved with the group because of its strong anti-communist beliefs.
However, this didn't erase the strong stances against African-Americans that had long tied him to the group – such as saying he wouldn't serve with a "negro" by his side and voted against President Harry Truman's desegregation efforts.
In 2005, Byrd admitted his time in the Klan was wrong – and reports cited his involvement with a Baptist church as the sparking moment of his reformation.
The Washington Post reports Byrd as saying, "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened."
It is all too easy to say that Byrd's sudden dropping of support for the Klan during his early political career could be a political move.
Maybe it was.
His vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 certainly doesn't help that image.
Unlike many political figures who have skeletons in the closet, Byrd admitted to his mistakes. He acknowledged his time in the group and never tried to hide it.
Instead, he did what many have been unable to do with such a sketchy past: He overcame his wrongdoings and recaptured the faith of the people.
Again in 2005, Byrd wrote in support of a $10 million dedication to Martin Luther King Jr., the champion of racial equality.
"With the passage of time, we have come to learn that his Dream was the American Dream, and few ever expressed it more eloquently," Byrd wrote, according to a release on the senator's website.
Despite some unconscionable acts – the degradation of an entire people and championing the imbalances of races, which is forever unforgivable – Byrd has turned his flawed past into a long legacy.
Byrd has served as a staunch supporter of the tradition of the congressional body – to champion the United States Constitution.
He represented West Virginia with a fierce delivery and dedication, the likes of which are not apparent in most senators.
Byrd has been, many times, a force to be reckoned with.
In 2003, when many were blindly following President George W. Bush's march to war in Iraq, Byrd stood up and fought for the ideals of the country he was helping represent.
When the war in Iraq was approved and ground operations began, Byrd remarked what many, fearing backlash from a misguided sense of patriotism, wanted to say.
"Today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid summed up Byrd's contribution to the political history of the United States in a thought-provoking way.
"Robert Byrd was a member of this nation's Congress for more than a quarter of the time it has existed, and longer than a quarter of today's sitting senators and the president of the United States have been alive," said Reid.
Byrd's much-published history will hopefully not be what defines him. Instead, let it provide many with the hope that lives can be changed and good work can still be done.
Byrd took a tarnished history and turned it on its head – from being swept up in a sentiment of inequality to one people to serving the needs of an entire nation.
And for that, we should remember him fondly.
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1945 (age 27): Writes to segregationist Senator Theodore Bilbo (D-Mississippi): “I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... 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.”
1947 (age 29): Wrote a letter to a KKK Grand Wizard stating, "I am a former kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County and the adjoining counties of the state. The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia." Byrd continued his racist diatribe "It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state of the Union" and followed with a request for assistance from the hate group's leadership in "rebuilding the Klan in the realm" of West Virginia.
1958 (age 40): Byrd defeated Republican incumbent W. Chapman Revercomb for the United States Senate . Revercomb's record supporting civil rights had become an issue, playing in Byrd's favor.
1964 (age 46): Attempts to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Cites a racist study claiming that black people’s brains are statistically smaller than white people’s. Votes against passage of the Civil Rights Act after his 14+ hour filibuster is unsuccessful.
1965 (age 47): Opposes the Voting Rights Act.
1967 (age 49): Votes against Thurgood Marshall’s Supreme Court nomination. Went to J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI to see if Marshall had any Communist ties that could ruin his nomination.
1968 (age 50): He told the FBI he could give a speech condemning King on the floor of the Senate saying it was time the Civil Rights leader “met his Waterloo.” Taking the Senate floor after the March 28 march turned violent in Memphis, Senator Byrd addressed himself to Martin Luther King and the Poor People’s Campaign which Dr. King was to lead in Washington: “If this self-seeking rabble rouser is allowed to go through with his plans here, Washington may well be treated to the same kind of violence, destruction, looting and bloodshed” as Memphis.
1982 (age 64): This is the year that Byrd says in a later 2005 CSPAN interview that it came to his mind, after the death of his Grandson, that “black people love their grandson's too” and that white's only signs should be taken down.
1991 (age 73): Votes Against Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court nomination. Becomes the only senator in the body to have voted against both black Supreme Court nominees.
2001 (age 83): Refers to what he called “white niggers” on national television.
2005 (age 87): In his memoir “Child of the Appalachian Coalfields,” Byrd describes the KKK as a Fraternal assembly of “upstanding people.”For a significant portion of his life (admittedly, at age 64 he realized that black grandparents love their grandchildren as much as which grandparents love theirs!), Byrd was a racist and a bigot and one can't, and shouldn't, be able to erase such a past from the history books. This is not a story of youthful indiscretions, but one of many years of racism. No one knows how many black men were beaten or tortured by Byrd’s KKK friends and disciples, but, amazingly, no one seems to care. To honor someone with this past by attaching his name to to the Health Sciences Center invokes shame on our great University.