| rdfs:comment | - James Strom Thurmond was a Racist or a Political opportunits who fought for the segregation that Jim Crow represented. Despite this he had a relationship with a Black maid and fathered a child with her. Strom Thurmond never publicly acknowledged his own daughter or had a good relationship with her because she was part Black.
- Strom Thurmond was a great leader, civil rights hero, and Senator of South Carolina. After his death, Strom gave birth to a 78-year-old-mixed-race-woman. His family was quoted as saying "As J. Strom Thurmond has passed away and cannot speak for himself, the Thurmond family acknowledges Ms. Essie Mae Washington- Williams' claim to her heritage." Because Thurmond loved The Baby Jesus so much, he was able to live to the ripe ol' age of 162, becoming the oldest living man in the world.
- James Strom Thurmond represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to April 1956 and November 1956 to 1964 as a Democrat and from 1964 to 2003 as a Republican.
- Strom Thurmond was an American politician and senator.
- James Strom Thurmond (December 5, 1902 – June 26, 2003) was an American politician who served for 48 years as a United States Senator. He ran for president in 1948 as the States Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrat) candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes. Thurmond represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 until 2003, at first as a Democrat and, after 1964, as a Republican. He switched because of his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, disaffection with the liberalism of the national party, and his support for the conservatism and opposition to the Civil Rights bill of the Republican presidential candidate Senator Barry Goldwater. He left office as the only senator to reach the age of 100 while still in office and as the oldest-serving
- James Strom Thurmond (December 5, 1902 - June 26, 2003) was an American politician with a remarkably long career. After graduating Clemson College in 1923, he served as a public high school teacher in his native South Carolina, becoming Edgefield County Superintendent in 1929. In 1930 he was admitted to the South Carolina bar and served as a city and county attorney until 1938. In 1933 he was elected to the South Carolina State Senate as a Democrat, his first elected office; he held his seat there until 1938, then gave it up to become a circuit judge. He served in the United States Army in World War II and attained the rank of Major General in the Army Reserve. In 1947 he became Governor of South Carolina. The following year, Thurmond broke with the Democratic Party to challenge incumbent
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| abstract | - James Strom Thurmond was a Racist or a Political opportunits who fought for the segregation that Jim Crow represented. Despite this he had a relationship with a Black maid and fathered a child with her. Strom Thurmond never publicly acknowledged his own daughter or had a good relationship with her because she was part Black.
- James Strom Thurmond (December 5, 1902 - June 26, 2003) was an American politician with a remarkably long career. After graduating Clemson College in 1923, he served as a public high school teacher in his native South Carolina, becoming Edgefield County Superintendent in 1929. In 1930 he was admitted to the South Carolina bar and served as a city and county attorney until 1938. In 1933 he was elected to the South Carolina State Senate as a Democrat, his first elected office; he held his seat there until 1938, then gave it up to become a circuit judge. He served in the United States Army in World War II and attained the rank of Major General in the Army Reserve. In 1947 he became Governor of South Carolina. The following year, Thurmond broke with the Democratic Party to challenge incumbent President Harry Truman for the Presidency of the United States on the States Rights Democratic "Dixiecrat" Party. He came in third behind Truman and Republican Party candidate Thomas Dewey, carrying 39 electoral votes from South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and an additional electoral vote from Tennessee. After being defeated in a Democratic Party primary battle for candidacy to the United States Senate, he temporarily left politics altogether and entered into private practice of the law until 1955. In 1954 he was elected to the Senate in a write-in campaign (making him the only person ever elected to the Senate via that technique) but did not accept the seat, stepping aside to allow Charles E. Daniel to serve. However, when Daniel resigned almost immediately, Thurmond accepted a gubernatorial appointment to the seat. He resigned in 1956 and later that year accepted another appointment to fill that vacancy. He was finally elected to the seat in a special election in 1956 and was reelected in 1960, 1966, 1972, 1978, 1984, 1990, and 1996. In 1964 he switched party affiliations and became a Republican. He served as President Pro Tempore of the Senate on three separate occasions, as the Senate's first President Pro Tempore Emeritus, and as chair of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Armed Services. During a 1957 fillibuster, Thurmond spoke from the Senate rostrum for 24 hours and 18 minutes straight, reading through all 50 states' voting laws, telephone directories and even his grandmother's biscuit recipe, while his colleagues slept on cots brought in from nearby hotels. This is the record for the longest address in Senate history. Thurmond finally retired in 2002. At the time he held the record for longest-serving Senator in US history, having held the seat for 17,326 days; the record was broken by Robert Byrd of West Virginia on June 12, 2006. Thurmond turned 100 on December 5, 2002, during the lame-duck session of the 108th Congress of the United States, making him the only centenarian ever to hold an elected office on the Federal level in US history. Thurmond died shortly after leaving office, on June 26, 2003. At the time his political career had spanned fully one-third of American history.
- Strom Thurmond was a great leader, civil rights hero, and Senator of South Carolina. After his death, Strom gave birth to a 78-year-old-mixed-race-woman. His family was quoted as saying "As J. Strom Thurmond has passed away and cannot speak for himself, the Thurmond family acknowledges Ms. Essie Mae Washington- Williams' claim to her heritage." Because Thurmond loved The Baby Jesus so much, he was able to live to the ripe ol' age of 162, becoming the oldest living man in the world.
- James Strom Thurmond represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to April 1956 and November 1956 to 1964 as a Democrat and from 1964 to 2003 as a Republican.
- James Strom Thurmond (December 5, 1902 – June 26, 2003) was an American politician who served for 48 years as a United States Senator. He ran for president in 1948 as the States Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrat) candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes. Thurmond represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 until 2003, at first as a Democrat and, after 1964, as a Republican. He switched because of his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, disaffection with the liberalism of the national party, and his support for the conservatism and opposition to the Civil Rights bill of the Republican presidential candidate Senator Barry Goldwater. He left office as the only senator to reach the age of 100 while still in office and as the oldest-serving and longest-serving senator in U.S. history (although he was later surpassed in length of service by Robert Byrd and Daniel Inouye). Thurmond holds the record at 14 years as the longest-serving Dean of the United States Senate in U.S. history. In opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, he conducted the longest filibuster ever by a lone senator, at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length, nonstop. In the 1960s, he opposed the civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965 to end segregation and enforce the voting rights of African-American citizens. He always insisted he had never been a racist, but was opposed to excessive federal authority, and he attributed the movement for integration to Communist agitators. In 1948, Thurmond stated: all the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, into our schools, our churches and our places of recreation and amusement. Starting in the 1970s, he moderated his position on race, but continued to defend his early segregationist campaigns on the basis of states' rights in the context of Southern society at the time, never fully renouncing his earlier viewpoints. Six months after Thurmond's death in 2003, it was revealed that at age 22, he had fathered a mixed-race daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, with his family's maid, Carrie Butler, a 16-year-old black girl. Although Thurmond never publicly acknowledged Essie Mae, he paid for her education at a historically black college and passed other money to her for some time. She kept silent out of respect for her father and denies that the two had agreed that she would not reveal her connection to Thurmond. His children by his marriage eventually acknowledged her.
- Strom Thurmond was an American politician and senator.
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