Strom Thurmond

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James Strom Thurmond (1902-2003) was an United States Senator from South Carolina for over fifty years. He served from 1954 to 1964 as a Democrat and from 1964 to 2003 as a Republican. He is the only senator in US history to have been elected by write-in vote.

In the late 1940s, Strom Thurmond was a liberal. [1] As Governor of South Carolina, Thurmond said on a radio broadcast,


We need a progressive outlook, a progressive program and a progressive leadership

In his inaugural address as Governor Thurmond not only called for abolishing the poll tax, but also advocated expanding workmen’s compensation laws, and better working conditions in plants and factories. He repeated his call for better public education, and told his constituents that


more attention should be given to Negro education.

Thurmand also was a pioneer as a Democrat for feminism and the women's movement. He also demanded in his inagural


equal rights for women in every respect...equal pay for equal work for women.

Thurmond as a Democrat had been a supporter of segregation and ran for President on the breakaway Dixiecrat platform in 1948. Like many New Dealers, Thurmond by the 1960s was disenchanted with the Great Society and changed parties. At Thurmond's one hundredth birthday party, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott stated if Thurmond had been elected in the early days of the Cold War "we wouldn't have had these problems all these years." Liberals were in an uproar, and suggested some racial motivation behind Lott's comments This eventually caused Lott to resign his position as Majority Leader, as Thurmond had run on a segregationist platform.

After Thurmond's death, it was revealed that he had fathered a child with an African American woman. The woman he fathered the child with was a servant in the Thurmond family household. She was 16 and Thurmond was 22. While this relationship was not illegal, many feel that it is morally wrong. Thurmond and the child did not meet until she was 16 years old and she was unaware of the fact he was her father until that time. After that meeting, Thurmond did take more interest in her life and provided her with financial help. His now 71 year old daughter spoke affectionately of her father.

Strom Thurmond was married twice. His first wife, Jean Crouch, died of cancer in 1960. He married his second wife, Nancy Moore, a former beauty queen in 1968. She was 23 at the time. He was 66. She worked on his staff prior to their marriage.


References

  1. What Trent Meant, Kevin Baker.