Fact check: Photo shows Biden with Byrd, who once had ties to KKK but wasn't a grand wizard.

By the liberal rag USA Today

The claim: Joe Biden and a grand wizard of the KKK were photographed together

A photo circulating around Facebook and Instagram claims to depict former Vice President Joe Biden with a grand wizard of the KKK.

“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,” the text above the image reads.

Byrd was not a KKK grand wizard — but he did once lead a chapter

This picture of Biden and Byrd was taken by the Associated Press in October 2008 at a campaign rally in Charleston, West Virginia, during the time that Biden was running for vice president alongside then-Sen. Barack Obama.

Byrd grew up in West Virginia, which is where he got involved with the KKK.

“Many of the ‘best’ people were members — even senators and other high officials,” he wrote in his autobiography. “It was with such background impressions, therefore, that I sought to become a member of the KKK in the early 1940s.”

He recounted in his autobiography that at that time, he wrote a letter to Joel L. Baskin, the Klan’s grand dragon in his area, asking to join. In order to start a Klan chapter, or "klavern," in his town, Byrd was tasked with recruiting 150 people to the Klan. When he involved enough people to start a klavern, a unanimous vote among the recruits named him “Exalted Cyclops” of their group, which is the highest-ranking position in a chapter.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/14/fact-check-biden-isnt-kkk-grand-wizard-photo/3183887001/