And niggers gonna nig:
"My old mom told me, 'Robert, you can't go to heaven if you hate anybody.' We practice that. There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."
In apologizing, Byrd the Senate's senior Democrat said the phrase dated back to his childhood. In the same interview, Byrd also talked about joining the Ku Klux Klan in his youth, describing it as a mistake.