Strom Thurmond

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. 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. However after Thurmond's death, it was revealed that he had fathered a child with an African American woman. Thurmond had never abandoned the child, and his now 71 year old daughter spoke affectionately of her loving father.