Thurmond's daughter: "Tremendous weight" lifted

CNN.com ^ | 17 December 2003 | Faceless CNN drone

[Moose4]

"I never wanted to do anything to harm him or cause detriment to his life or to the lives of those around him," Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a 78-year-old retired schoolteacher said at a news conference in Columbia, South Carolina.

"My father did a lot of things to help other people, even though his public stance appeared opposite.

[Moose4]

A few things:

1) This lady is pure class. She isn't looking for money, she isn't suing, she isn't complaining. She simply sought what was rightfully hers, recognition that she is indeed Strom Thurmond's daughter, and now she has it.

2) Strom obviously wasn't right in doing what he did, but at least he did take care of her. He actually paid to send her to college at South Carolina State.

3) This press conference was in a ballroom near where my company had an all-morning dog-and-pony-show I had to attend. Security was VERY tight...plainclothes officers with earphones, lots of Columbia PD, metal detectors, the works.

4) If Robert KKK Byrd had a love child, would he EVER be referenced as "former Klansman Robert Byrd?"

5) With everything going on in the world, political indictments, the situation in Iraq, the economy...THIS is the LEAD FREAKING STORY on CNN.com right now. Ah, the good old Commie News Network, always there to take any opportunity to impugn a white Southerner and/or Republican.

}:-)4

[mikeb704]

Michael M. Bates: My Side of the Swamp

[cajungirl]

This lady gives new meaning to the word "lady". She had a dignity that most would die for. She is a lovely person. Strom ought to be proud in heaven

[reed_inthe_wind]

God bless this fine woman.

[MamaB]

I don't understand one thing about this story. Why would she need a lawyer?

[spectre]

Ole Strom did the right thing by supporting her...what his motives were is between him and God.

Meanwhile, we are free to speculate..

sw

[King Black Robe]

I would be interested to learn her views on abortion. At least she lived to tell this story.

[nfldgirl]

With everything going on in the world, political indictments, the situation in Iraq, the economy...THIS is the LEAD FREAKING STORY on CNN.com right now.

Sure beats the HECK out of "All-Kobi, All-MJ, All-Snotty Petersen"...ad nauseam!

[cwb]

That was my exact thought after reading the very first sentence: Would Robert Byrd ever be refered to as a former Klansman? How pathetic.

[Huck]

By CNN? Apparantly not. It's buried in paragraph 5 as a youthful mistake here:

http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/03/04/byrd.slur/

[twigs]

I think she just wanted to be recognized for who she was and anticipated that it would not be as easy as it turned out to be. I don't blame her. I think both she and the Thurmond family have handled this with class.

[lilylangtree]

Trying to understand what the leftist media is doing, so OK, Strom Thurmond had a biracial love child that he acknowledged and financially supported. And this means what?

[Mike Darancette]

Thurmond joined the Republican Party in the 1960s and ultimately turned away from his segregationist past.

Democrats notice Thurmond changed his ways after he became a Republican. To a man born in his time and place Thurmond had to know what the Republican Party stood for.

Politics = off: That said Thurmond's daughter is a real class act. I wish her and her offspring peace, love and acceptance.

[Moose4]

No doubt CNN et al were really hoping that this woman would turn out to be suing the Thurmond family for money, and that the Thurmond family would be horrified at the thought of Strom's bi-racial love child, and that they could moralize and cluck their tongues at the horrible, backward South Carolinians trying to keep this woman from her due.

Instead, she didn't sue. The Thurmonds have graciously accepted her, and in fact want to meet her. Almost everyone involved in this situation has comported themselves with proper Southern class and dignity.

CNN is deeply saddened.

}:-)4

[Verginius Rufus]

Meanwhile, about those rumors about Clinton and Danny boy...

[subterfuge]

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but its only a matter of time before a "concerned" attorney explains to this woman that she "deserves" compensation for having endured-fill in the blank- injustices and that she must sue so that these types of things never happen to anyone again.

I give it about 2 weeks, tops.

[quark]

Well, they didn't call him "Sperm" Thurmond for nothing. Fathered children from his 20s into his 70s...not bad.

[luvbach1]

And yes, Jesse (I had a love child and concealed it)Hijackson had the gall to weigh in with his criticism.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I think it was just in case the Thurmond family denied the claim.

BTW, Strom's son is about 30. It would be wierd to have a sister old enough to be my grandmother.

[ravinson]

At the time of Washington-Williams' birth, Butler was 16 and Thurmond was 22, unmarried and living in his parents' home.

That would be statutory rape in most states today. I never liked Strom Thurmond and couldn't believe South Carolinians kept voting for that senile old coot, but this story helps explain why the Senate let Clinton off on the impeachment charges without even a real trial. No doubt there are plenty of other Republican Senators with equally embarrassing behavior in their backgrounds.