page_title: Robert Byrd
section_title: Filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Byrd / Congressional service / Filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Senator Robert Byrd meeting with President Gerald Ford.Français&#160;: Gerald Ford serrant la main au sénateur Robert Byrd.
context_page_description: Robert Carlyle Byrd was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from West Virginia for over 51 years, from 1959 until his death in 2010. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrd previously served as a U.S. Representative from 1953 until 1959. He is the longest-serving U.S. Senator in history, was the longest-serving member in the history of the United States Congress, until surpassed by Representative John Dingell of Michigan; the last remaining member of the U.S. Senate to have served during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower; and the last remaining member of Congress to have served during the presidency of Harry S. Truman. Byrd is also the only West Virginian to have served in both chambers of the state legislature and both chambers of Congress.
  Byrd served in the West Virginia House of Delegates from 1947 to 1950, and the West Virginia State Senate from 1950 to 1952. Initially elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1952, Byrd served there for six years before being elected to the Senate in 1958.
context_section_description: Byrd was a member of the wing of the Democratic Party that opposed federally-mandated desegregation and civil rights. However, despite his early career in the KKK, Byrd was linked to such senators as John C. Stennis, J. William Fulbright and George Smathers, who based their segregationist positions on their view of states' rights in contrast to senators like James Eastland, who held a reputation as a committed racist.
  Byrd joined with Democratic senators to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1964, personally filibustering the bill for 14 hours, a move he later said he regretted. Despite an 83-day filibuster in the Senate, both parties in Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Act (Democrats 47–16, Republicans 30–2), and President Johnson signed the bill into law. Byrd cast no vote on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and voted against the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court. He did not sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto and voted for the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1968, as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 2005, Byrd told The Washington Post that his membership in the Baptist church led to a change in his views. In the opinion of one reviewer, Byrd, like other Southern and border-state Democrats, came to realize that he would have to temper "his blatantly segregationist views" and move to the Democratic Party mainstream if he wanted to play a role nationally.
caption: Majority Whip Byrd meeting with President Gerald Ford
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