Thurmond Story Stirs Emotions

As news that a 78-year-old Los Angeles woman said she was the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond trickled through the Southland on Sunday, some African Americans expressed anger that she had kept such a significant secret for so long. Others said the affair rekindled bitterness about their own hidden interracial family histories.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams plans to make the announcement at a news conference Wednesday in Columbia, S.C. that she has “irrefutable” evidence that Thurmond, once known as one of the country’s staunchest segregationists, was her father, according to her attorney, Frank K. Wheaton.

The announcement comes after a Washington Post story detailed the relationship between Washington-Williams and Thurmond, who died in June at the age of 100.

Williams, who has lived in Los Angeles for 40 years, claims that her African American mother met Thurmond while working as a maid in his parents’ South Carolina home and gave birth to her at age 16. Thurmond was 22 at the time.

“For her to come out right now is a slap,” said Frances Moffett, 63, a Mississippi native who was on her way to service at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Los Angeles. “I really do wish she would have come out earlier.”

Christine Milton, 59, who was also going to the church, said: “For that woman to be so closed mouth, she should be ashamed of herself, especially for trying to protect him.”

“He should have been held accountable,” said Lester Campbell, 40, who was attending the First AME Church.

It is common knowledge that white men did not acknowledge paternity to mixed-race children at a time when blacks had few rights and intermarriage was outlawed, said James E. Bragg, 73, a retired investigator who attended the First AME Church on Sunday with his wife.

“Let me tell you, the average black person that’s looking at this is not surprised,” he said.

Bragg said many black people have inherited hints of Caucasian features from undetermined ancestors, including three of his grandchildren, who have light bluish-green or gray eyes.

“Servants would be used,” he said, referring to the early 1900s. “They don’t dare tell that he did it; he may kill you.”

Vance Guidry, 32, a former teacher, read the news at the Magic Johnson Starbucks in Ladera Heights on Sunday morning. Growing up, he said he thought of Thurmond as “a racist.” Now, Guidry is even more angry with him.

“Black men got harassed, hanged or killed for flirting with white women,” he said.

Farid A. Haqq, 57, a business counselor who was at Starbucks, said Thurmond may have believed segregation was the best model for society, but he and other white men in those days probably “didn’t think black people weren’t beautiful. They just thought they had no place in society.”

As a result, many black families are a jumble of skin tones, he said.

“In my family, we had people who were passing [for white] and people who were as dark as my shoe,” Haqq said.

Dr. Gail Elizabeth Wyatt, a UCLA professor and author of “Stolen Women: Reclaiming Our Sexuality, Taking Back Our Lives,” which traces the history of black female sexuality, said white ancestry is common among African Americans.

“A lot of people have similar secrets that they may never reveal, or they may do so at the end of their lives in order not to embarrass the family members who raised them,” she said.

She added that Washington-Williams’ story was important because Thurmond was such a “noted racist.”

Bragg said he believed Thurmond, who once led the fight against civil rights bills from the Senate floor, came off as such a steadfast conservative because he believed it was the best political decision for him. But it was unlikely that he despised black people, and Washington-Williams’ story indicates that, he said.

“He was looking out for himself. He wanted to be elected and he played off that,” Bragg said. “Was he a racist? Well, probably a little. But basically, he was probably not as bad a person as people made him out to be, or as he portrayed himself.”

Others said he must have loved his daughter because he provided her with financial support, including paying her expenses at the all-black South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, according to a Washington Post article that was based on interviews with Williams and personal documents.

“He honored his family. He acknowledged her,” said Haqq. Washington-Williams made an understandable choice to keep her secret for so long, he said.

She probably waited to reveal her story until after Thurmond’s death because “life was easier without that hoopla,” Haqq said. “Everybody has a right to privacy.”

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Times staff writer Gayle Pollard-Terry contributed to this report.