Strom Thurmond Totally Explained

James Strom Thurmond (December 5, 1902 – June 26, 2003) was an American politician who served as governor of South Carolina and as a United States Senator. He also ran for the presidency of the United States in 1948 under the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party banner. He garnered 39 electoral votes in that race, making him the first third party presidential candidate to receive electoral votes since Robert M. La Follette, Sr. in 1924. He later 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. He served as Senator through his 90s, and left office at age 100 as the oldest serving and longest-serving senator ever (although he was later surpassed in the latter by Robert C. Byrd). Thurmond holds the record for the longest serving Dean of the United States Senate in U.S. history at 14 years. He conducted the longest filibuster ever by a U.S. Senator in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He later moderated his position on race, but continued to defend his early segregationist campaigns on the basis of states' rights; he never fully renounced his earlier viewpoints. He was the third U.S. Senator to reach age 100 but the only one to do it while still in office.

Early life and career

James Strom Thurmond was born on December 5, 1902 in Edgefield, South Carolina, the son of John William Thurmond and Eleanor Gertrude Strom. He attended Clemson College (now Clemson University), where he was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, graduating in 1923 with a degree in horticulture. He was a farmer, teacher and athletic coach until 1929, when he became Edgefield County's superintendent of education, serving until 1933. Thurmond read law with his father and was admitted to the South Carolina Bar in 1930. He served as the Edgefield Town and County attorney from 1930 to 1938, and joined the United States Army Reserve in 1924. In 1933 Thurmond was elected to the South Carolina Senate and represented Edgefield until he was elected to the Eleventh Circuit judgeship.
   After the outbreak of World War II, Judge Thurmond resigned from the bench to serve in the U.S. Army. In the Battle of Normandy (June 6–August 25, 1944), he crash-landed his glider with the 82nd Airborne Division. For his military service, he received 18 decorations, medals and awards, including the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, Bronze Star with Valor device, Purple Heart, World War II Victory Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, Belgium's Order of the Crown and France's Croix de Guerre Thurmond's political career began the days of Jim Crow laws, when South Carolina strongly resisted any attempts at integration. Running as a Democrat, Thurmond was elected Governor of South Carolina in 1946 and supported the state's segregation laws.
   In 1948, after President Harry S Truman desegregated the U.S. Army and proposed the creation of a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission, Thurmond became a candidate for President of the United States on the third party ticket of the Dixiecrat Party, which split from the national Democrats over the proposed constitutional innovation involved in federal intervention in segregation. Thurmond carried four states and received 39 electoral votes. One 1948 speech, met with cheers by supporters, included the following:
Thurmond ran for the U.S. Senate in 1950 against Senator Olin Johnston. Both candidates denounced President Truman during the campaign. Johnston defeated Thurmond by 186,180 votes to 158,904 votes (54% to 46%). It was the only statewide election Thurmond would ever lose.
   In 1952, Thurmond endorsed Republican Dwight Eisenhower for the Presidency, rather than Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson. This led state Democratic Party leaders to block Thurmond from receiving the nomination to the Senate in 1954, forcing him to run as a write-in candidate.

Senate career

1950s

In 1954 he became the only person ever elected to the U.S. Senate as a write-in candidate, campaigning, at the recommendation of Governor James Byrnes, on the pledge to face a contested primary in the future. He resigned in 1956, triggering an election. He then won the Democratic primary--in those days, the real contest in South Carolina--for the special election triggered by his own vacancy. His career in the Senate remained uninterrupted until his retirement 46 years later, despite his mid-career party switch.
Thurmond supported racial segregation with the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator, speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an unsuccessful attempt to derail the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Other Southern Senators, who had agreed as part of a compromise not to filibuster this bill, were upset with Thurmond because they thought his defiance made them look bad to their constituents.

1960s

Throughout the 1960s, Thurmond generally received relatively low marks from the press and his fellow Senators in the performance of his Senate duties, as he often missed votes and rarely proposed or sponsored noteworthy legislation.
   As Thurmond was increasingly at odds with the Democratic Party, on September 16, 1964 he switched his party affiliation to Republican. He played an important role in South Carolina's support for Republican presidential candidates Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1968. South Carolina and other states of the Deep South had supported the Democrats in every national election from the end of Reconstruction to 1960. However, discontent with the Democrats' increasing support for civil rights resulted in John F. Kennedy barely winning the state in 1960. After Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon Johnson's strong support for the Civil Rights Act and integration angered white segregationists even more. Goldwater won South Carolina by a large margin in 1964.
   In 1968, Richard Nixon ran the first GOP "Southern Strategy" campaign appealing to disaffected southern white voters. Although segregationist Democrat George Wallace was on the ballot, Nixon ran slightly ahead of him and gained South Carolina's electoral votes. Due to the antagonism of white SC voters towards the national Democratic Party, Hubert Humphrey received less than 30% of the total vote, carrying only majority black districts.
   At the 1968 Republican Convention in Miami Beach, Thurmond played a key role in keeping Southern delegates committed to Nixon, despite the sudden last-minute entry of California Governor Ronald Reagan into the race. Thurmond also quieted conservative fears over rumors that Nixon planned to ask either Charles Percy or Mark Hatfield — liberal Republicans — to be his running mate, by making it known to Nixon that both men were unacceptable for the vice-presidency to the South. Nixon ultimately asked Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew — an acceptable choice to Thurmond — to join the ticket.
   At this time, too, Thurmond took the lead in thwarting Lyndon Johnson's attempt to elevate Justice Abe Fortas to the post of chief justice of the United States. Thurmond's devotion to the original structure of the federal Constitution, coupled with his general conservatism, had left him quite unhappy with the Warren Court, and he was happy simultaneously to disappoint Johnson and to leave the task of replacing Warren to Johnson's presidential successor, Richard Nixon.

1970s

Thanks to his close relationship with the Nixon administration, Thurmond found himself in a position to deliver a great deal of federal money, appointments and projects to his state. With a like-minded president in the White House, Thurmond became a very effective power broker in Washington. His staffers said that he aimed to become South Carolina's "indispensable man" in D.C.
In 1976, Thurmond was torn between wanting to support incumbent President Gerald R. Ford for the Republican nomination and making good on a promise he'd given to Reagan back in 1968 to support him when he finally did run. Ultimately, Thurmond remained neutral during the primary contest (which saw Reagan take South Carolina's votes).
In 1979, rather than support frontrunner Reagan for the 1980 nomination, Thurmond made the surprise announcement that he was backing Secretary of the Treasury John Connally instead. As a result, despite his Judiciary Committee chairmanship, Thurmond had relatively little influence with the Reagan Administration.

Views regarding race

In the 1970s, Thurmond endorsed racial integration earlier than many other southern politicians. He also hired African American staffers, enrolled his white daughter in an integrated public school, and supported blacks nominees for federal judgeships. The Washington Post reported that a Thurmond staffer advised him to abandon his segregationist views after one of his proteges, Congressman Albert Watson, was badly defeated in a race for governor of South Carolina. Thurmond would also support extension of the Voting Rights Act and making the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. a federal holiday.

Later career

Thurmond became President Pro Tempore of the Senate in 1981, and held the largely ceremonial post for three terms, alternating with his longtime rival Robert Byrd depending on the party composition of the Senate. On December 5, 1996, Thurmond became the oldest serving member of the U.S. Senate, and on May 25, 1997, the longest serving member (41 years and 10 months). He cast his 15,000th vote in September 1998. He joined the minority of Republicans who voted for the Brady Bill.
Towards the end of Thurmond's Senate career, there was controversy over his mental condition. Some, including some close friends, claimed that he'd lost mental acuity and shouldn't have been serving in the Senate. Concern was also raised when he served as President Pro Tempore of the Senate, which is third in line for the presidency. However, his supporters argued that while he lacked physical stamina due to his age, mentally he remained aware and attentive and maintained a very active work schedule in showing up for every floor vote.
Declining to seek re-election in 2002, he was succeeded by fellow Republican Lindsey Graham. At Thurmond's hundredth birthday party in December 2002, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott sparked controversy by praising Thurmond's 1948 candidacy for President, leading to Lott's resignation from the post. Thurmond left the Senate in January 2003 as America's longest-serving senator. On June 26, 2003, he died at 9:45 p.m at the age of 100, at a hospital in Edgefield, where he'd been living since retiring.

Family

Thurmond married his first wife, Jean Crouch (1926–1960) in 1947. She died of cancer 13 years later; there were no children.
   He married his second wife, Nancy Janice Moore, Miss South Carolina of 1965, in 1968. He was 66 years old and she only 23. She had been working in his Senate office off and on since 1967. It is often said that he ran for president before she was born. This is false; however, he was old enough to be eligible. They separated in 1991, but never divorced.
   At age 68, Thurmond fathered what was believed to be his first legitimate child. His four children with Nancy are: Nancy Moore (1971–1993), who was killed in a traffic accident; James Strom, Jr. (1972– ); Juliana Gertrude (1974– ); and Paul Reynolds (1976– ), elected to the Charleston County Council in 2006.
   He became a grandfather publicly for the first time on June 17, 2003, just nine days before his death. He first became a grandfather secretly decades earlier when Ms. Washington-Williams had her first child.

Illegitimate daughter

Shortly after Thurmond's death on June 26, 2003, Essie Mae Washington-Williams publicly revealed that she was Strom Thurmond's illegitimate daughter. She was born to an African American maid, Carrie "Tunch" Butler (1909–1947), on October 12, 1925, when Butler was 16 and Thurmond was 22. Thurmond met Washington-Williams when she was 16. He helped pay her way through college and later paid her sums of money in cash or, through a nephew, checks. These payments extended well into her adult life. Washington-Williams has stated that she didn't reveal she was Thurmond's daughter during his lifetime because it "wasn't to the advantage of either one of us" She denies that there was an agreement between the two to keep her connection to Thurmond silent.

The U.S. Air Force has a C-17 Globemaster named "The Spirit of Strom Thurmond".

The Strom Thurmond Institute is located on the campus of Clemson University. George H. W. Bush was on hand at the ground breaking ceremony while he was the Vice President.

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