Thurmond's Daughter Tells her story.

[The Backlash Cometh]

Thurmond's daughter tells her story
Segregationist senator's secret biracial child, 79, pens Dear Senator

WASHINGTON - The biracial daughter of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond more than once confronted her father over his racist politics but cherished their relationship and ignored pleas from her family that she expose her parentage.

"For all his bluster, for all his racist campaign posturing, I somehow couldn't dislike him the way I wanted to," writes Essie Mae Washington-Williams, 79, in Dear Senator, an autobiography to be released next month.

The daughter of the longtime champion of segregation and his family's black maid has refrained from speaking publicly since she revealed the secret. That was a year ago, six months after Thurmond's death.

Dear Senator, titled after the way she addressed her letters to Thurmond, answers many of the questions that have swirled around a relationship kept secret for nearly eight decades.

Years could go by between meetings, Washington-Williams writes, but she and Thurmond saw each other at least a dozen times over his lifetime.

It bothered her that he rarely touched her beyond a handshake, and that even privately he only a few times called her "daughter."

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/politics/2953100

[blueknight]

1. he was a rapist and a racist

im sure right now he's burning in hell

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. That's probably why he couldn't answer his daughter's question.

She asked him how he could say the things he did in public, and still love her mother. But Thurmond didn't answer.

I think he raped her too. That's why the daughter and mother were separated at birth. That doesn't sound like a love child.

[hollowdweller]

3. Wonder if "W" and Condi's child will have the same fate?