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Strom: The Complicated Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond

2005

Synopsis

In Strom, Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson deliver a remarkable look at the life of a remarkable — and complicated — politician. First elected to public office in 1929, Strom Thurmond was a pivotal figure in the nation's politics for more than seven decades particularly when it came to issues of race: the Dixiecrat presidential candidate in 1948, originator of the 1956 "Southern Manifesto" against the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, holder of the record for a Senate filibuster for his opposition to the 1957 Civil Rights Bill. Yet as a young man Thurmond had secretly fathered a daughter with the family's black maid, and quietly supported her through college and beyond.

An intense public examination of Thurmond's legacy began when he left the Senate at age 100, continued when he passed away soon after and only grew when Essie Mae Washington-Williams announced in December 2003 that she was the senator's long-rumored black daughter.

Bass and Thompson know Strom better than anyone. They both covered him for years and broke the big stories. In Strom, they tell us a great deal about power and politics in our nation and race's twisted roots in the 20th century South.

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Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond

Breaking nearly eight decades of silence, Essie Mae Washington–Williams comes forward with a story of unique historical magnitude and incredible human drama. Her father, the late Strom Thurmond, was once the nation's leading voice for racial segregation (one of his signature political achievements w...

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Strom Thurmond's America

"Do not forget that ‘skill and integrity' are the keys to success." This was the last piece of advice on a list Will Thurmond gave his son Strom in 1923. The younger Thurmond would keep the words in mind throughout his long and colorful career as one of the South's last race-baiting demagogues and a...

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