Difference between revisions of "Strom Thurmond"

Revision as of 02:21, August 21, 2010

Conservapedia is drowned in Vandalism!

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-[[Image:StromThurmond1.jpg‎|right|250px|thumb|Senator Strom Thurmond]]
+[[Conservapedia is drowned in Vandalism!]]
-'''James Strom Thurmond''' (1902-2003) was a [[United States Senate|Unites 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 holds the record for length of service in the Senate, and is the only senator in US history to have been elected by write-in vote; he is the only major office holder in [[United States|American]] history to serve at age 100.
-==Governor==
-In the late 1940s, Strom Thurmond --a Democrat--was a moderate and a modernizer who represented the middle class, the wealthy landowners,  and the business community in the state to bring in new industry. In South Carolina terms he was a [[New Deal]] liberal, but he rejected the populism of the "lint heads" (mill workers and poor farmers) led by Cole Blease and Olin Johnston. Thurmond belonged to the more conservative faction of the Democratic party led by [[James Byrnes]].<ref>Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson, ''Ol' Strom: An Unauthorized Biography of Strom Thurmond'' (2003), pp 121-22; ch 8</ref> 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 workman's compensation laws, and better working conditions in plants and factories. He repeated his call for better public education, and told the state that ''"more attention should be given to Negro education".''
-Thurmond advocated in his inaugural speech: ''..."equal rights for women in every respect...equal pay for equal work for women."''
-==Presidential candidate==
-[[Image:Thurmond48.jpg|thumb|300px|''Time'' magazine Oct 11, 1948]]
-Thurmond as a Democrat had been a supporter of [[segregation]] as most were in the South at that time,  and ran for President on the breakaway [[Dixiecrat]] platform in 1948.
-'''Dixiecrat''' was the informal term for Southern Democrats who in 1948 refused to support President [[Harry S. Truman]] for reelection because he was too liberal on racial issues. The official name was the '''States Rights Party'''.  They formed a third party that nominated Thurmond, who carried four states in the Deep South where he was the official nominee of the Democratic party, gaining 39 electoral votes. Thurmond had 1.2 million popular votes, or 2.4% of the national total. The party did not nominate any other candidates at any level, and dissolved after Truman won the election.  Dixiecrats like Thurmond went back to their old party.
-==Senator==
-Like many [[New Deal]]ers, 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." [[Deceit|Liberals]] were in an uproar, and suggested some racial motivation behind Lott's comments, demanding he not only apologize, but resign from the Senate and his leadership position.  This politically motivated pressure and defamation, a continual distortion and interpretation of his remarks, eventually caused Lott to resign his position as Majority Leader, as Thurmond had indeed run on a segregationist platform.
-After Thurmond's death, it was revealed that he had fathered a child with a woman in his family's employ. The woman he fathered the child with was an [[African-American]] domestic worker in the Thurmond family household. She was 16 and Thurmond was 22. This was decades before he would run for [[President]] on the [[Dixiecrat]] ticket that opposed [[miscegenation]]. [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showplatforms.php?platindex=SR1948] 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 (who had always privately given financial support to the mother and child), did take a more personal interest in her life.  His now 71 year-old daughter spoke affectionately of her father, and pointedly told reporters she and her mother had never held a grudge or ill feelings toward Thurmond.
-Strom Thurmond was married twice. His first wife, Jean Crouch, died of cancer in 1960. He married his second wife, Nancy Moore, in 1968. She worked on his staff prior to their marriage.
-==References==
-<references/>
-==Further reading==
-* Bass, Jack, and Marilyn W. Thompson. ''Strom: The Complicated Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond'' (2nd ed. 2006) [http://www.amazon.com/Ol-Strom-Unauthorized-Biography-Thurmond/dp/1570035148/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229410351&sr=1-4 excerpt and text search of 2003 edition]
-* Frederickson, Kari. ''The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968'' (2001) 310 pgs.  [http://www.questia.com/read/100781200?title=The%20Dixiecrat%20Revolt%20and%20the%20End%20of%20the%20Solid%20South%2c%201932-1968 online edition]
-{{DEFAULTSORT: Thurmond, Strom}}
-[[Category:Former United States Senators]]
-[[Category:Democratic Party]]
-[[Category:Republican Party]]
-[[Category:South Carolina Governors]]
-[[Category:Conservatives]]

Difference between revisions of "Strom Thurmond"

Revision as of 02:21, August 21, 2010

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