Posted on 02/25/2007 4:21:09 PM PST by lightman
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Prominent black activist Al Sharpton has learned he is descended from a slave who was owned by ancestors of the one-time segregationist U.S. senator, the late Strom Thurmond, the Daily News reported on Sunday.
The series of revelations came to light after the newspaper offered Sharpton a chance to delve into his family history with the help of genealogy experts from Ancestry.com.
Sharpton learned of the connection this week, and told the News that "nothing -- nothing -- could prepare me for this."
According to the genealogists' research, Sharpton's great-grandfather, Coleman Sharpton, was a slave in South Carolina, who along with a woman and two children -- believed to be his wife and children -- were given as a gift to Julia Thurmond and forced to move to Florida.
Julia Thurmond's grandfather was the great-great-grandfather of Strom Thurmond, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 1948 on a program of keeping the races in the Deep South segregated.
The researchers were led by Megan Smolenyak, an ancestry scholar who has written four books and was the lead researcher for the PBS "Ancestors" series, the newspaper said.
Among unearthed documents was an 1861 slave contract that confirmed that Coleman Sharpton was sent from Edgefield County, South Carolina, to Liberty County, Florida, where he would work until given his freedom at the end of the Civil War.
"You know for real that you are three generations away from slavery," Sharpton said after being told of his history. Informed by the paper of the Thurmond connection, he wondered aloud: "Strom Thurmond's family owned my family."
"It's chilling," he said. "It's amazing," before adding "Maybe I'm the revenge of Coleman." On a more serious note he reflected his past "gives you a sense of obligation."
Sharpton became known in New York in 1985 when he demanded a stiff sentence for a white man, Bernhard Goetz, who shot some black youths on a New York subway. Sharpton's activism continued over the next two decades and he made a brief run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.
Relatives of Thurmond, who after his death was revealed to have fathered a black child, reacted with skepticism or resignation to the findings. Thurmond's son Paul had "no comment," while Thurmond's nephew Barry Bishop said it was "a bunch of baloney."
Shown the evidence, he said he knew nothing about it and could not comment.
But a niece, Ellen Senter, told the News that going back far enough in history would turn up "lots of people connected to each other from different walks of life."
"It is wonderful that (Sharpton) was able to become what he is in spite of what his forefather was," she said.
Thurmond was elected to the Senate in 1954 and led the fight over the next decade against civil rights legislation. He eventually changed his views and kept being re-elected until he was more than 100 years old. He left the Senate in 2003 as its longest serving member and died at short time later.
Ping.
"Bernhard Goetz, who shot some black youths"
Bernhard Goetz, who shot some criminal savages in self-defense.
There, that's better.
And she alluded to Sharpton having become what? A race-baiting pimp?
Two of Sharpton's associates quit, claiming the reverend had known all along that the case was a hoax. Other black leaders criticized Brawley's advisers -- Ray Innes of the Congress of Racial Equality and attorney Conrad Lynn among them. They feared the hoax and the antics of publicity hounds like Sharpton would prove detrimental to the cause of racial equality.
The Brawley case resurfaced a decade later when Steven Pagones filed a defamation suit against Maddox, Mason and Sharpton; he had already won a default judgment against Tawana in 1991. By 1997, Tawana had moved to Washington and changed her name to Maryam Muhammad. She returned to New York to speak before a rally at Brooklyn's Bethany Baptist Church in support of her advisers, insisting that she had told the truth about the abduction. The court found otherwise. Her advisers were ordered to pay Pagones $345,000 while Tawana had to pay $185,000.
Beat me to it. The other part they left out is that muggings basically ceased for what, about a week after Bernie asserted his right not to be beat up and robbed?
/sarc
So, should the Thurmonds demand a refund? /sarc
The story I read on this earlier led me to believe he was descended from one of Thurmans relatives.
Now they say his antecedents were merely owned by a relative of Strom Thurmond.
This is no big deal. So what?
My gut tells me this is contrived. I'm sure Al Sharpton's family must have been owned by Al Gore's great-great-great-grandfather. Just look at the similarity of the first names.
Y'know, some people just go around looking for trouble. Thurmond's alleged slave-owning ancestors are dead. Sharpton's alleged slave ancestors are dead. So what. He should get on with his life and get over it. But nooooooooo ... just more fuel for his victim-mentality poor-me, I'm-oppressed-because-my-ancestors-200-years-ago-were-oppressed, fire. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this.
Yeah, the timing is very suspicious what with this weekend being the debut of the film Amazing Grace.
Sharpscum starts feeling useless if a month goes by without his name in headlines.
Barack Obama and Vice President Cheney are cousins. I think Obama is also related to President Bush and President Truman.
ABSOLUTELY! If his ancestors were as trifling as old Al, the Thurmonds should require him to pay them for allowing them to live on their land! Has Al ever done an honest day's work?
Thanks for fixing that, re Bernard Goetz. They should'a given him a parade.
Sharpton was a marginal figure in the Democratic Party, until the Clintons sought him out.
Shapton's forebear had an honest job and supported his family. Al doesn't own the shirt on his devious back.
He's too dumb to realize it, but he's still on the "Plantation".
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