Thurmond Monument to Include Daughter

Las Vegas Sun ^ | March 09, 2004 | ASSOCIATED PRESS

[yonif]

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - A state Senate committee approved adding the name of Strom Thurmond's biracial daughter to the list of his children engraved on a monument to the late U.S. senator.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams came forward last year and announced she is the daughter of Thurmond and a black 16-year-old housekeeper who worked in the Thurmond family home.

Thurmond was 22 years old when Washington-Williams was born. He died last year at age 100.

The Statehouse monument was built in the late 1990s with $850,000 in private donations. The statue depicts Thurmond as he was in the 1960s - in the midst of a political career that spanned most of the past century.

Thurmond also had four children with his second wife, Nancy. The oldest is 31-year-old Strom Thurmond Jr.

[CindyDawg]

Don't take this wrong. I believe ST should have included her but these guys don't have the right to do this.

[cyborg]

His other children have accepted her so why not?

[CindyDawg]

I said I think her name should have been there but it shouldn't be the goverments decision to decide IMO

[cyborg]

I wonder if the family petitioned for this first. I have a hard time believing they would just add someone's name to a monument like that.

[ladyinred]

While this is a lovely gesture, is this something they should be deciding? I don't mind, I am just a little surprised to see this.

[CindyDawg]

If so then that would be ok. I just don't like the idea of goverment PCing peoples lives:')

[cyborg]

True. I wonder why Ford had to sponsor a bill. I guess because it's a public monument. Asking government to mind its business is like telling the Mississippi to go backwards *LOL*

[cyborg]

http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess115_2003-2004/bills/816.htm
Bill can be read here if anyone is curious.

[Cornelius Jay McGuyver]

I just don't like the idea of goverment [sic] PCing peoples lives

Acknowledging all of his children (including the one he fathered while using the impoverished daughter of the household help as a sex toy) is PC? Pardon my intrusion on the sensitivities of the fine Southern Christian man and the appearances that he and his family wished to project (all while deriding single black mothers as brood sows, welfare queens, etc.).

So are conservatism and hypocrisy such a natural fit all the time, or is this a special case?

[ladyinred]

Thanks for the link!

[cyborg]

I'm not speaking for CD but this government has a habit of doing things with tax payer money that isn't wanted. HOWEVER, this monument was paid for with private donations and from the tone of the bill I imagine the senator knows the Thurmond family. The Thurmond family certainly didn't balk at adding her name which would have well been within their right to do so.

[cyborg]

:)

[CindyDawg]

How many times do I have to post this? IMO what he did was wrong and it was no way to treat his daughter. That being said the goverment has no right to try to correct his bad behavior and add her name.

[Smocker]

Why not? She is his daughter, she should be recognized as such, even if he never publicly acknowledged her. Maybe the next politician to seek public office should make sure his pants have been zipped up at all the right times to avoid such sordid episodes as these in the future of their families and upon their desired legacy.
I don't think it a pc makeover of the mans' life, it's an accurate representation of what he did, and how he lived. To pc his life would be to re interpret his actions or words. Facts are facts, and to put them up for the world to see, if it will stop the next 22yr old from unzipping his pants and taking advantage of a woman in his parents' household, then so be it.

[Darksheare]

"So are conservatism and hypocrisy such a natural fit all the time, or is this a special case?"

No, just liberals and lunatics are a natural fit.
And by your statement, you place yourself OUTSIDE of conservative thinking.
So you are admitting you are not a conservative?