Posted on 12/26/2003 6:35:34 AM PST by Moose4
Strom Thurmond was your what? That racist, segregationist, obstructionist who stood on the Senate floor and almost single-handedly stopped key civil rights legislation by carrying on the longest filibuster in U.S. history? He was your father? But you are black?
This was likely the common first reaction among many who heard the news. But to many blacks, there is little surprise. Some have called the existence of a black child of Strom Thurmond the worst-kept secret in South Carolina or Washington. It was, as it were, an open secret, denied only by the principals involved, Sen. Thurmond and his daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams.
I first heard the story in 1996 when I was Mrs. Washington-Williams’ pastor here in Los Angeles. I had just returned from Washington and was sharing with the congregation what I thought was a great irony and sign of progress.
As the guest chaplain offering the opening prayer to the Senate, it was protocol for me to be escorted to the podium by the president pro tem of the Senate, none other than the infamous Strom Thurmond.
How, I wondered, did it feel to him to have to escort this black preacher to the well of the Senate to deliver a prayer for the nation? The service hadn’t been over for an hour before one of the church members upstaged my little tale with this simple sentence, “Well, you know, Reverend, Essie Williams is Strom Thurmond’s daughter.” Respecting her privacy, I never considered asking Mrs. Washington-Williams directly.
But this open secret was not just being denied by Essie and Strom. We as a nation continue to live in denial over the continuing legacy of slavery and the everyday impact of race and racism in this country. That Sally Hemmings had a white father; that she bore several children by a white father (Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, later president) is one of America’s open secrets that has recently been confirmed and acknowledged.
But almost every black family in this country can name the white progenitor in their family tree, usually within only two or three generations (that’s all that separates us from slavery). One of the open secrets that continues to be debated in my family is whether or not my Papa (great-grandfather) Jolly was white.
This is one reason why slavery and its legacy don’t seem so remote to us. The way race is defined in America (the one drop rule — one drop of black blood makes one black) allows whites (Strom Thurmond et al.) to ignore, deny, and forget not just entire branches but whole groves of their family tree. Thus, socially, economically and politically whites benefit from this systematic exclusion by reserving to fewer and fewer persons more and more of the power, prestige and property that goes along with being an “American citizen.”
This practice concentrates family and racial group wealth into the hands of a few (pure) white ones and forever excludes the “little brown ones” (to borrow a phrase used by George H.W. Bush when referring to his Hispanic grandchildren).
That is what segregation was all about. Remember, during Reconstruction (that period immediately after the Civil War when blacks had the vote), because blacks were the majority in several states, we elected senators, governors and myriad other local officials all across the Deep South. The very point of Jim Crow laws and segregation was to deny the vote to this majority and reserve to “whites only” all social, political and economic preferences. Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrat movement of 1948 was instrumental in continuing Jim Crow laws and white supremacy and black oppression in this country.
Essie May Washington-Williams did not choose to play politics with her father. That was certainly a daughter’s prerogative. But let us not think that her secret was hers alone. It is all of our secret and maybe now, like Essie Mae, we can tell the truth about who we all (black and white) are. We can also look at her years of silence another way. If it hadn’t been for her silence we would never have been rid of Trent Lott.
The Rev. Shockley is a minister at the Congregational Church of Christian Fellowship in Los Angeles.
Nice job showing the flock about grace, Rev. Damn nice job. Not.
}:-)4
What is weird about this statement, it echos what a Harvard professor has been saying for years.. he catagorizes it as 'race traitors'.. I think we will hear more and more of these type statements in the near future.
Think of the joy of Danny's sister, Chelsea, and the Arkie friends bulding Willie's library. I pray that Willie can find it in his heart to hug this young man and return him to the bossom of the familiy in which he truly belongs.
I watched and listened to Essie Mae Washington-Williams give a short speech on C SPAN last week. What struck me most was her affection and respect for Strom. This did not flow from a vacuum. It was clear that Strom had, even during the most sensitive period of his political life, taken care of her and affirmed her dignity. She said she often visited him in Washingon DC as a young woman and that he always graciously welcomed her. He took care to ensure her material needs were met and that she even received a college education. He showed more concern for her upbringing as his illegitimate daughter than many men today show for their fully legitimate children.
She did not come across as a typical liberal Democrat black victim. She exuded intelligence, self-assurance, and grace. She is a woman fully equal to Strom and well-fitted to the grand possibilities of life in this great nation. It seems clear that having Strom as a father had a lot to do with that.
It is too facile to posit, as liberals always do, that segregationism arose from some inherent sense of white superiority. There was some of that (racism to some degree is found among all people; liberals are certainly not immune). But I have come to the opinion that more than any other single factor, segregationism as a political force arose as a backlash to the harsh and punitive reconstruction laws forced on the south after the Civil War--a poke in the eye of nothern federal imperialism. Unfortunately, blacks in the south suffered the most in consequence of this battle, of this century-long seething southern resentment and defiance.
Southern white leaders including Strom share guilt for the injuries suffered by blacks during this period (and over the last 30 years of his life and service Strom did much to atone for his part). But liberals also have guilt, which to this day they refuse to acknowledge. Worse, liberals have deepened and enlarged their guilt by perpetuating the slave mentality among blacks through programs and policies designed to keep blacks dependant on and subservient to white-dominated federal government.
Viewed from this perspective, Strom's kindness and decency toward his daughter Essie Mae during the most turbulent period of desegregationism does not appear hypocritical at all, but makes abundant good sense.
I am sure you are right, for all the reasons you set forth.
It's a complex issue. Liberals love to oversimplify to better demonize their opponets, deny their own guilt, and establish their own crooked self-righteousness.
It's been interesting to watch the liberal Democrat reaction to the Essie Mae revelation. They want so much to make it yet one more lurid installment in their swooning and cynical morality play, but the quiet dignity of Essie Mae Williams and her gracious refusal to sully the memory of her father has stymied them.
Mrs. Williams was not conceived during the slave era. It is an extreme stretch of the imagination to even attempt to tie in slavery.
to ignore, deny, and forget not just entire branches but whole groves of their family tree....systematic exclusion by reserving to fewer and fewer persons more and more of the power, prestige and property that goes along with being an “American citizen.”
The Propaganda Preacher picked the wrong example to make a stupid point. He left out the part that in private Essie Mae was neither ignored, denied or forgotten. She has admitted that Senator Thurmond provided for her all her life. Her children went on to be very educated, successful people. And they did so of their own character and determination, not as the grandchildren of a famous Senator. THAT, Rev. Shockley is EXACTLY was being an "American citizen" is all about. You need to find some other poster child for your cause.
Bingo!!
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