Does photo show Joe Biden with KKK Grand Wizard? Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

A photo spreading online claims to show Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden campaigning with the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK.)

MISLEADING

An example as it appears on social media is below.

Biden with Grand wizard Of KKK. So who again is playing you, lying to you, using you for the votes, Creators of the KKK, opposed civil right of blacks. Yup that’s the Democratic Party.

While the photo is real, the claim that the man Biden is pictured with is a Grand Wizard of the KKK is false. However the man in the photo, US Senator Robert Byrd, was a member and supporter of the KKK in the 1940’s before renouncing his membership and offering an apology many years before this photo was taken.

The photo itself dates back to October 24th 2008, a few weeks before the 2008 US Presidential Election, where Biden was the running mate to Senator Barack Obama, who went on to win the election and become president.


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The man Biden is holding hands with was US Senator Robert Byrd. It is true that Byrd was involved in the KKK during the 1940’s when Byrd was in his twenties, and at the time had a number of racist comments and documents attributed to him. Byrd had first gotten into politics during the 1950s and by that time he had renounced his membership to the Klan and claimed he had become “disinterested” in their activities.

Byrd would later apologise for his involvement in the KKK and claimed it was a “foolish mistake” in his 2005 autobiography.

It had been a foolish mistake to ever associate myself with the Klan. I became caught up with the idea of being part of an organization to which so many “leading” persons belonged. I wanted to display my skills in organizing and recruiting members, and I was delighted with the encouragement and praise I received for my efforts.

All of this occurred before the 2008 photo with Biden above.

Given that Byrd had renounced his KKK membership in the 1950s and apologised for his involvement many years before this photo with Joe Biden was taken, the claim that it shows Biden with a KKK member is misleading, and the claim it shows Biden with the Grand Wizard of the KKK is objectively false.

Byrd died in 2010. President Barack Obama was one of the people who gave a eulogy at Byrd’s memorial.

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