Byrd, << burd, >> Robert Carlyle (1917-2010), a Democrat from West Virginia, served in the United States Senate from 1959 to 2010, longer than any other person. Byrd held several leadership posts in the Senate. He was Senate majority leader from 1977 to 1981 and again from 1987 to 1989. From 1981 to 1987, Byrd served as minority leader of the Senate. He was the Democratic whip (assistant leader) from 1971 to 1977. Byrd was president pro tempore (temporary president) of the Senate from 1989 to 1995; from 2001 to 2003; and from 2007 until his death.
As majority leader, Byrd helped win Senate approval of two Panama Canal treaties in 1978. One treaty provided for Panama to take control of the canal on Dec. 31, 1999. The other gave the United States the right to defend the canal’s neutrality.
Byrd was born on Nov. 20, 1917, in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. His original name was Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr. His mother died when he was 10 months old. Byrd’s father sent the boy to live with the family of an uncle, Titus D. Byrd of Stotesbury, West Virginia. The youth, who changed his name to Robert Byrd, became a butcher because he did not have enough money to get a college education.
During the 1940’s, Byrd belonged to the Ku Klux Klan for about 18 months (see Ku Klux Klan ). In 1946, he won election to the West Virginia House of Delegates. He ran for the state Senate in 1950. Byrd won that election even though Democratic Party leaders had withdrawn their support because of his membership in the Klan. Byrd was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1953 to 1959.
One hundred speeches that Byrd delivered in the Senate in the 1980’s about the Senate’s history were published in four volumes as The Senate, 1789-1989: Addresses on the History of the Senate (1989-1994). Byrd is the author of Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency (2004), in which he criticizes President George W. Bush’s administration. Byrd also wrote a memoir, Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields (2005).
Byrd was reelected to the Senate in November 2006. He became the first person to win a ninth term in the U.S. Senate. In November 2009, Byrd surpassed Carl Hayden, a former U.S. representative and senator from Arizona, to become the longest-serving lawmaker in congressional history. Byrd died on June 28, 2010.
