Strom Thurmond fathered a child with his 16-year-old black maid

[Tony_Montana]

American gothic

The revelation that Strom Thurmond fathered a child with his 16-year-old black maid raises a host of thorny questions about race, sex, power -- and media silence.

 

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By Rebecca Traister

 

 

Dec. 18, 2003 | In 1948, while running for president of the United States on the Dixiecrat ticket, Strom Thurmond proclaimed, "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."

 

But in 1925 it apparently had taken neither legislation nor bayonet to force a 16-year-old black maid named Carrie Butler into the bed of Thurmond himself, then a 22-year-old graduate of Clemson University living with his parents in Edgefield, S.C.

 

This week, it was officially revealed that the union between the former South Carolina judge, governor and senator, who died earlier this year at age 100, and his family's teenaged maid, produced a daughter: Essie Mae Washington-Williams, 78, a retired school teacher living in Los Angeles. In a press conference Wednesday, Washington-Williams announced that she was coming forward because she decided her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren deserved to know "from whom, where, and what they have come" and explained that the relationship between her and her father had been warm, their communication regular. Earlier this week it was reported that Thurmond had put his daughter through college and supported her financially before she was married, and after her husband, Julius, died.

 

 

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[rudy-Diiriye]

i hated that moran! isnt the one who yelled out segregation now, segregatin tomorrow segregation for ever!

 

guess he had jungle fever!! and i betchya he rapped her! talk about american phony justice!! dont trust whitie! always be wary about them ppl!

or they will suck your blood!