Strom Thurmond had other Black Relatives
by Sean Yoes
Special to the NNPA from the Baltimore Afro-American

However, the Baltimore Afro-American newspapers reported in 1948, the same year South Carolina's then-Gov. James Strom Thurmond was the presidential nominee of the segregationist Dixiecrat Party, that he had several Black relatives, including an uncle and two cousins.

The AFRO initially reported in the edition dated Aug. 17, 1948, that a man named Robert Thurmond, from Morristown, N.J., was Strom Thurmond's first cousin.

''I certainly do know Strom, and he knows me, and he knows of our relationship because we were the only Thurmonds in Edgefield [South Carolina],'' stated Robert Thurmond.

Edgefield was the home of Strom Thurmond and his father, James E. ''Snip'' Thurmond, and, according to AFRO reporter Douglas Hall, Edgefield was the home to several other Thurmonds, many of whom were Black.

At the end of August in 1948, Hall traveled to Edgefield to find the rest of Strom Thurmond's Colored clan.

In the Aug. 24, 1948, edition of the AFRO, he reported the existence of the Rev. James R. Thurmond, a half-cousin of Strom Thurmond, Eva Thurmond Smith, another cousin, and Thomas Thurmond, Strom Thurmond's uncle.

''Why, I remember well when Gov. Thurmond's father used to visit my grandfather. I remember asking my grandfather, why did that White man always visit our home? My grandfather [Thomas Thurmond] told me that they were brothers,'' claimed Rev. Thurmond.

Douglas Hall reported further: ''It seems like everybody up there [Edgefield, S.C.] are Thurmonds. They are of all colors. Some are so White that you cannot tell them from the original Thurmonds. The only thing that surprises Colored Thurmonds is, why is it so important that they are related to the White Thurmonds? It is an old story and 'everybody in these parts knows it.'''

WASHINGTON (NNPA) - A 22-year-old Strom Thurmond having sex with his family’s 16-year-old Black maid should not be seen as an "affair," as it has been widely portrayed in the media, but rape, a well-respected Black sociologist says.

"You could call this a statutory rape because this person was about 16 or so when this happened," says Julia Hare, executive director of the Black Think Tank in San Francisco. "These are the types of things that we need to look at very seriously when we look at these double standards."

Essie Mae Washington-Williams, 78, a retired school teacher who now lives in Los Angeles, decided to tell her secret in order to bring closure to the subject and finally answer persistent questions from reporters.

For years, Thurmond and his family had remained silent and, in some cases, expressed doubt about the veracity of stories accusing him of fathering a Black daughter. Just days before the daughter had called a news conference to offer evidence that Thurmond was her biological father and to say she was willing to submit to a DNA test, the family finally confirmed the validity of her claim.

Washington-Williams says she had not come forward earlier because she didn’t want to ruin the political career of Thurmond, who died in June at the age of 100.

Thurmond was a virulent racist who ran for president in 1948 on a pro-segregationist platform. He said at the time: ''And I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there’s not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theatres, into our swimming pools, into our homes and into our churches.''

In 1957 – three years after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregated public schools in its famous "Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kan." – Thurmond filibustered a civil rights bill for a record 24 hours and 18 minutes. The bill, which eventually passed, was the first civil rights legislation passed since 1875.

It provided the authority for establishing a civil rights office at the Department of Justice to enforce federal anti-bias laws and to investigate complaints of civil rights violations. It also provided for voting rights enforcement and established criminal civil rights violations.

NAACP Board Chairman Julian Bond notes the contradiction between a White Southerner who considered Blacks inferior while sexually exploiting an African-American teenager in private.

"It is a story, most of all, of great personal hypocrisy," says Bond. "How a man can preach racial separatism and practice interracial sex, in defiance of the then-current laws of his state and defiance of his entire public life. You wonder if Strom Thurmond and others like him ever had any convictions about anything at all."