[size=50]I ALWAYS HAVE FOUND THIS STORY TO BE FASCINATING:
Strom Thurmond’s black daughter: a symbol of America’s complicated racial history[/size]Essie Mae Washington-Williams lived for 87 years. But, in her own words, she was never “completely free” until she could stand before the world and say out loud that Strom Thurmond, the one-time segregationist South Carolina senator, was her father. That was in 2003, after she had spent more than 70 years being denied what we all deserve – her true name and birthright. “In a way, my life began at 78, at least my life as who I really was,” Washington-Williams wrote in her life story. She has died.Thurmond’s oldest child — born when he was a 22-year-old man and her mother, Carrie Butler, a 16-year-old black maid in his father’s house – had kept the senator’s secret, an open one rumored about but never revealed when he was alive because, she had said, “He trusted me, and I respected him.” As in the case of Thomas Jefferson, another successful southern politician who was father to black children, stories shared among African Americans were long disbelieved until they turned out to be true.

Last edited by zeke (10/19/2016 8:28 am)

OK I just read her biography on Wikipedia. What an interesting woman. She found out Strom was her Father at 16.  He did pay "quietly" for her to attend college. They had somewhat of a relationship & she felt she helped him change his segregationist beliefs. She grew up in Pennsylvania & did not visit the segregated South until she was 17.  She said she was shocked by the racial restrictions of the South (1942).


She kept the secret until he died. That is amazing.
Thanks again zeke.

Last edited by Sam (10/19/2016 2:21 pm)