Letters link Thurmond, long-secret daughter
from LowCountry Carolina News
The late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., is framed in a Citadel honor guard during a Dec. 4, 1999, ceremony on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds in Columbia, where a statue of him was dedicated. The Associated Press The late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., is framed in a Citadel honor guard during a Dec. 4, 1999, ceremony on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds in Columbia, where a statue of him was dedicated.The carefully worded letters lack anything personal, but show a lifelong link between the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond and his long-secret biracial daughter, Essie Mae Washington Williams.For all their businesslike tone, the letters show Thurmond took an interest in Williams' life and the lives of her children - his grandchildren.Among 8 million pages of Thurmond documents archivists are preserving, the earliest known letter between Thurmond and Williams was in April 1946, The State of Columbia reported Sunday.Publicly, Thurmond was at the time a segregationist, opposing any mixing of races. Privately, he had a child with a black woman and kept in touch with his daughter for decades.Their correspondences - most from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s - are among the late senator's letters and documents archived at Clemson University, his alma mater.The records include Father's Day, Christmas and birthday cards from Williams to Thurmond. They also reveal Thurmond's ongoing efforts to help Williams and her family.Dan Carter, a University of South Carolina historian, said the letters are valuable because they help document Thurmond's "bizarre double life of maintaining contact with someone who is your flesh and blood - important to a Southerner - yet at the same time managing to separate that completely from your politics."By having a child with a black woman, Thurmond violated taboos on interracial sex, Carter said.At the same time, he was a leading segregationist. The new records will help "historians trying to figure out who Thurmond was," Carter said.Last December, 55 years after her mother died and six months after Thurmond died, Williams publicly announced Thurmond was her father. Thurmond's relatives accept her claim as true. Ultimately, her name was added to a monument honoring Thurmond that lists his other children.Williams said she was born Essie Mae Butler on Oct. 1, 1925, the result of a liaison between the then-22-year-old Thurmond and a black maid in his parents' Edgefield house, Carrie Butler. Butler was 16 at the time, Williams has said.Early in his 48-year Senate career, Thurmond instructed Williams to write "very personal" on the outside of envelopes of her letters to him. Staffers put letters with that notation on his desk unopened."These were more or less business letters," Williams told The State. "There was never anything personal in it. Of course, my reasoning behind that was, in case anybody opened the letter, there wouldn't have been anything there for them to get from it."When Williams wrote to her father in the spring of 1946, he was a 43-year-old circuit judge readying to run for governor.Williams, 20, was living in New York City, taking classes at New York University and considering a move back to her native South Carolina to attend the state's public college for blacks.Located in Orangeburg, it was called the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural and Mechanical College, or A&M for short. Today, it is South Carolina State University.The 1946 letter is the only known letter Williams wrote to Thurmond signed, "Essie Mae."Often, over the years, Thurmond would write his daughter using her initials and the title, "Mr." In turn, Williams often signed her letters "E.M. Washington" or after she married, "E.M. Williams."Williams said she didn't know if using "Mr." was a code to confuse people who might come across the letters."Maybe it was a typographical error," she said with a chuckle. "That was not a code though. That was something that was his choice."From the late 1950s, only scattered pieces of correspondence can be found between Williams and Thurmond.Williams said she was writing Thurmond two or three times a year by the '60s, sending cards to mark Christmas, Father's Day or his birthday. Thurmond never sent Williams similar greetings, she said.But, in response to her cards, he usually replied with a brief official letter thanking her, she said."He always acknowledged them."Williams credits Thurmond with keeping her financially solvent after her husband, Julius Williams, 45, died of heart failure in 1964. She was left with four children and no income.She declined to say how much Thurmond gave her throughout the years, but her attorney, Frank Wheaton, has said it was less than $1 million.Thurmond probably would not have given her as much money as he did had she not been widowed with four children to care for and educate, she said.Also, in 1964, Thurmond quit the Democratic Party and became a Republican after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. Despite his political stands, the relationship between Thurmond and his daughter continued.Thurmond softened his segregationist positions starting in 1970.About the same time, Williams, who had gone to work as a teacher and, later, a school administrator, went to graduate school.On June 9, 1972, Thurmond wrote Williams, congratulating her on earning a master's degree. For the first documented time, he wrote using her first name.The same day, Thurmond wrote his granddaughter, Williams' daughter Wanda, congratulating her on her high school graduation.Thurmond's papers began arriving at Clemson in 1982, 21 years before Williams revealed Thurmond was her father.Clemson archivists trying to winnow down the huge collection admit they could have thrown away some of the correspondence, not realizing its value.All Williams correspondence now will be kept, they say.
The late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., is framed in a Citadel honor guard during a Dec. 4, 1999, ceremony on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds in Columbia, where a statue of him was dedicated. The Associated Press The late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., is framed in a Citadel honor guard during a Dec. 4, 1999, ceremony on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds in Columbia, where a statue of him was dedicated.The carefully worded letters lack anything personal, but show a lifelong link between the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond and his long-secret biracial daughter, Essie Mae Washington Williams.For all their businesslike tone, the letters show Thurmond took an interest in Williams' life and the lives of her children - his grandchildren.Among 8 million pages of Thurmond documents archivists are preserving, the earliest known letter between Thurmond and Williams was in April 1946, The State of Columbia reported Sunday.Publicly, Thurmond was at the time a segregationist, opposing any mixing of races. Privately, he had a child with a black woman and kept in touch with his daughter for decades.Their correspondences - most from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s - are among the late senator's letters and documents archived at Clemson University, his alma mater.The records include Father's Day, Christmas and birthday cards from Williams to Thurmond. They also reveal Thurmond's ongoing efforts to help Williams and her family.Dan Carter, a University of South Carolina historian, said the letters are valuable because they help document Thurmond's "bizarre double life of maintaining contact with someone who is your flesh and blood - important to a Southerner - yet at the same time managing to separate that completely from your politics."By having a child with a black woman, Thurmond violated taboos on interracial sex, Carter said.At the same time, he was a leading segregationist. The new records will help "historians trying to figure out who Thurmond was," Carter said.Last December, 55 years after her mother died and six months after Thurmond died, Williams publicly announced Thurmond was her father. Thurmond's relatives accept her claim as true. Ultimately, her name was added to a monument honoring Thurmond that lists his other children.Williams said she was born Essie Mae Butler on Oct. 1, 1925, the result of a liaison between the then-22-year-old Thurmond and a black maid in his parents' Edgefield house, Carrie Butler. Butler was 16 at the time, Williams has said.Early in his 48-year Senate career, Thurmond instructed Williams to write "very personal" on the outside of envelopes of her letters to him. Staffers put letters with that notation on his desk unopened."These were more or less business letters," Williams told The State. "There was never anything personal in it. Of course, my reasoning behind that was, in case anybody opened the letter, there wouldn't have been anything there for them to get from it."When Williams wrote to her father in the spring of 1946, he was a 43-year-old circuit judge readying to run for governor.Williams, 20, was living in New York City, taking classes at New York University and considering a move back to her native South Carolina to attend the state's public college for blacks.Located in Orangeburg, it was called the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural and Mechanical College, or A&M for short. Today, it is South Carolina State University.The 1946 letter is the only known letter Williams wrote to Thurmond signed, "Essie Mae."Often, over the years, Thurmond would write his daughter using her initials and the title, "Mr." In turn, Williams often signed her letters "E.M. Washington" or after she married, "E.M. Williams."Williams said she didn't know if using "Mr." was a code to confuse people who might come across the letters."Maybe it was a typographical error," she said with a chuckle. "That was not a code though. That was something that was his choice."From the late 1950s, only scattered pieces of correspondence can be found between Williams and Thurmond.Williams said she was writing Thurmond two or three times a year by the '60s, sending cards to mark Christmas, Father's Day or his birthday. Thurmond never sent Williams similar greetings, she said.But, in response to her cards, he usually replied with a brief official letter thanking her, she said."He always acknowledged them."Williams credits Thurmond with keeping her financially solvent after her husband, Julius Williams, 45, died of heart failure in 1964. She was left with four children and no income.She declined to say how much Thurmond gave her throughout the years, but her attorney, Frank Wheaton, has said it was less than $1 million.Thurmond probably would not have given her as much money as he did had she not been widowed with four children to care for and educate, she said.Also, in 1964, Thurmond quit the Democratic Party and became a Republican after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. Despite his political stands, the relationship between Thurmond and his daughter continued.Thurmond softened his segregationist positions starting in 1970.About the same time, Williams, who had gone to work as a teacher and, later, a school administrator, went to graduate school.On June 9, 1972, Thurmond wrote Williams, congratulating her on earning a master's degree. For the first documented time, he wrote using her first name.The same day, Thurmond wrote his granddaughter, Williams' daughter Wanda, congratulating her on her high school graduation.Thurmond's papers began arriving at Clemson in 1982, 21 years before Williams revealed Thurmond was her father.Clemson archivists trying to winnow down the huge collection admit they could have thrown away some of the correspondence, not realizing its value.All Williams correspondence now will be kept, they say.
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