Early Career
Byrd worked as a gas-station attendant, a grocery-store clerk, a shipyard welder during World War II, and a butcher, before he won a seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1946, representing Raleigh County from 1947 to 1950. In 1950, he was elected to the West Virginia Senate, where he served from 1951 to 1952. After being elected to the United States House of Representatives, he began night classes at American University's Washington College of Law in 1953, but did not receive his law degree from the university until a decade later, by which time he was a U.S. Senator. President John F. Kennedy spoke at the commencement ceremony in June 1963 and mentioned Byrd by name. Byrd also studied at The George Washington University Law School but did not receive an undergraduate degree until 1994, when he graduated from Marshall University.
In 1951, then–State Delegate Robert Byrd was among the official witnesses of the execution of Harry Burdette and Fred Painter, which was the first use of the electric chair in West Virginia. In 1965 the state abolished capital punishment, with the last execution having occurred in 1959.
Read more about this topic: Robert Byrd
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends—the few”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)