This individual who Obama described as "a voice of principle and reason" once wrote a letter in 1944 to racist Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, about the move to integrate the armed services saying "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."

In death as in life, Robert Byrd has a white sheet over his head.

The Black Sphere
NPR