Robert Byrd, the Fiddling Senator 5JUL10 from Mother Jones

Sen Robert Byrd, the Fiddling Senator, was buried on 5JUL10 in Arlington National Cemetery, next to his wife. Here is a sample of his music that says more about the man than any politician could.

— By Michael Mechanic

| Mon Jul. 5, 2010 10:23 AM PDT

Last week, upon the passing of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, MoJo correspondent James Ridgeway posted this video on his blog, Unsilent Generation. The fact that Byrd was an accomplished old-time fiddler was no secret to his West Virginia constituents. Old-time mountain music is mighty popular with Appalachian voters, even now. But like me and Ridgeway, most Americans probably had no idea the man had musical talents. Byrd recorded this album, Mountain Fiddler, back in 1978, by which point he was already a senator. It was released by County Records, an old-time and bluegrass label in Floyd, Virginia, active since the 1960s.
I emailed Alan Jabbour, retired director of the American Folklife Center, who wrote the liner notes, hoping to learn a bit about how it came about. "I knew Senator Byrd pretty well and recorded him for the Library of Congress," Jabbour wrote back. "And yes, he both fiddles and sings on the record. My friend Barry Poss recorded the actual LP record tracks and assembled the excellent back-up band of bluegrass musicians who accompanied Senator Byrd."
Jabbour pointed me to West Virginia's Dominion Post, which had interviewed him. (He didn't feel like repeating himself.) Byrd, the paper reported, took up fiddle when he was young, and would break it out and play a few tunes on campaign stops now and again. "I think music was dear to his heart," Jabbour told the DP. "You don’t get to playing a fiddle like that just because it’s useful in politics. You only get there because you played the fiddle when you were young and threw your heart and soul into it."
There are plenty of hot fiddlers in Appalachia. How good was Byrd? "He wouldn’t have said he was a great fiddler," he'd told the DP. "But there is a level of fiddling that you can fiddle at and everyone would say that is good. That’s where he was."
His singing wasn't too bad, either.

Robert Byrd, Truth, and Peace 29JUN10

SENATOR Robert Byrd (D-WV) died Monday, 28 JUN 2010 at the age of 92. He was the longest serving Senator in the history of our nation and a great man and a Christian, a man of faith. Rest in peace Senator Byrd. 

"War appears inevitable. But, I continue to hope that the cloud will lift."
- Sen. Robert Byrd, in a speech delivered on the Senate floor on March 19, 2003, in opposition to the war in Iraq. Sen. Byrd passed away on Monday. (Source: Salon.com)

by Valerie Elverton Dixon 06-29-2010

Truth is a two-edged sword that cuts both ways.  We may wield it against an enemy with great satisfaction.  However, the truth also cuts us, and does so with a fare-thee-well.  Senator Robert Byrd was a man who had the courage to face the truth about himself and about his nation.  He had the grace and the humility to acknowledge his mistakes and to apologize for them.  He could work with former rivals until they became friends.  He had the strength to stand against the logic of war and insist upon the imperative of truth-telling.  No truth, no justice, no peace.
Byrd started his life among the often forgotten, poorest of the poor in the United States.  He grew up in the coal fields of West Virginia.  He started attending Sunday school after a kind-hearted man gave him two pairs of socks so that he could attend church without embarrassment.  Byrd was smart, hardworking and ambitious, joining the Klu Klux Klan in order to meet important people.
From the earliest days of his political career, he took criticism for this decision.  He has apologized for this aspect of his past.  He said: “I know now that I was wrong.  Intolerance has 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 was a leader of the Klan who encouraged him to go into politics.
As long as he represented the parochial prejudices of the South, he stood against civil rights, famously filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, later, after he won battles for leadership in the Senate, especially the battle for Senate Democratic Whip against Senator Edward Kennedy, his views became more liberal.  He thought that leadership made him responsible to a larger constituency.
He supported civil rights legislation and the Equal Rights Amendment; he voted with liberals on housing, unemployment benefits, Social Security and public works projects. Most recently, he voted for health care reform legislation and suggested that it be named for his good friend and former rival, Edward Kennedy.  He brought millions of dollars in federal money to West Virginia, and the people continued to elect him.
However, as a person who writes peace theory, I especially appreciate Byrd’s stance against the war in Iraq. He never wavered in his insistence that the American people know the truth about why this nation entered that war.  He thought it was an overreach of presidential power and a cowardly display by the legislative branch.  He thought that a glaring weakness of our government was lies.  He wrote:  “Lies at the top of government can have a deeply corrosive effect on the quality of our democracy for which there are no ready answers.”  People cannot trust government officials who lie, and thus democracy is threatened.
Peace theory holds that violent conflict happens when we act on a lie or an error in judgment based on deception.  This is especially true when we fall into the easiest and most common deception of all, that the Other, the enemy Other is less than, less human than we and is worthy of segregation, discrimination, or annihilation.  Senator Byrd, through the course of his long life learned this lesson and has left it as a legacy for a nation ever working toward its more perfect self.  Thank you, Senator Byrd. May you rest in peace.
Dr. Valerie Elverton Dixon is an independent scholar who publishes lectures and essays at JustPeaceTheory.com. She received her PhD in religion and society from Temple University and taught Christian ethics at United Theological Seminary and Andover Newton Theological School.