Ain't you learn nothing from the Hemingses?
Thurmond's Biracial Daughter Seeks to Join Confederacy Group
By SHAILA K. DEWAN and ARIEL HART
Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a biracial woman who stepped forward last year to acknowledge that she was the daughter of the late Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, now wants to join the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization of descendants of soldiers who fought for the South in the Civil War.
Evidently she is eligible: Senator Thurmond, once a fierce segregationist, was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a similar group for men. Ms. Washington-Williams, a 78-year-old retired teacher who lives in Los Angeles, also plans to apply for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Black Patriots Foundation, which honors black Revolutionary War fighters. One of her two sons will apply to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, her lawyer said.
The announcement, which was made this week, was in keeping with the confounding nature of a story that some said was emblematic of racist hypocrisy in the South, but which produced no apparent bitterness on the part of Ms. Washington-Williams. Her mother, Carrie Butler, was a maid in the Thurmond family home in South Carolina and was 16 when she gave birth to Ms. Washington-Williams. Mr. Thurmond saw her about once a year and gave her financial support, she has said.
Out of a desire to protect her father, Ms. Washington-Williams waited until after his death a year ago to come forward about her parentage, and put an end to decades of silence with a simple dignity, saying, "At last, I feel completely free."
On Thursday, her name was added to a monument to Senator Thurmond on the statehouse grounds in Columbia, S.C., joining the names of the senator's other children.
Ms. Washington-Williams is joining the Confederate organization not to honor the soldiers that fought for a Southern way of life dependent on slavery, but to explore her genealogy and heritage, her lawyer, Frank K. Wheaton, said yesterday. In applying, she claims an honor that can be bestowed only on someone of her lineage, he said, and she hopes to encourage other blacks in a similar position to do the same.
To be honest, it looks like the Thurmonds are more accepting of all this than the Jefferson descendants. Goven all the testable DNA laying around, that might not be optional but adding her name to the monument (after gagging on the very concept of a monument to ol' Strom) was definitely optional. Unless she asked for it.
But you know, there's no need to join the Confederates to explore your heritage and geneology.
The Dunovant family was deep into the Confederacy, and I'm honestly not as sure about how I connect to those two guys as I am about these two, but I'm trying to picture what it would take to get me to apply for membership to the Sons of Confederate Veterans and nothing comes to mind.
Posted by P6 at July 2, 2004 05:48 AM
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