thestate.com - The thestate home page

 Search Last 7 Days
Search Archives

Home
News
Breaking
Columnists
Education
Metro
Nation
Neighbors
Politics
Special Reports
World
Sports
Gamecocks
Tigers
Preps
Business
Opinion
Ariail Cartoon
Letters
Life & Style
Columnists
Food
Health
Home & Style
Life & Arts
Readers' Circle
Travel
Weekend
Get Out!
Crossword
Movies
Music
Obituaries
Calendars
Classified Ads
Services
Newspaper ads online
EZ Pay subscriptions
Lottery Numbers
Contact Us
Archives
Search Archives
Free 7-Day Archives

E-HEADLINES
Sign-up to receive the top headlines from The State. Mailings are sent each morning by 9 a.m. Monday - Friday
Email Address :
E-mail Address

Subscribe
Unsubscribe


Back to Home >  Special Packages >

Strom Thurmond






Posted on Thu, Jun. 26, 2003
Strom Thurmond, S.C. Legend, Dies
100-year-old was longest-serving senator

Strom Thurmond, the South Carolina legend who dominated state politics for more than 50 years, died at 9:45 p.m. Thursday at Edgefield County Hospital.

"Surrounded by family, my father was resting comfortably, without pain, and in total peace," Strom Thurmond Jr. said in a statement issued on the family's behalf.

Details of the funeral, expected to be one of the largest in state history, will be released at 11 a.m. today by state Sen. John Courson, R-Richland, a close family friend.

Strom Thurmond's public and political career spanned nearly all of the 20th century. It began in Edgefield County, where he was elected county school superintendent in 1929, and ended in the United States Capitol, where he was the longest-serving senator in history.

In between, he was a state senator, circuit judge and governor. He was a third-party presidential candidate in 1948, campaigning against Harry Truman. Six years later, he became the only person ever elected to the U.S. Senate as a write-in.

He holds the Senate filibuster record at 24 hours and 18 minutes.

He led an extraordinary life. Thurmond landed at Normandy on D-Day during World War II, was the first major Southern Democrat to switch to the Republican Party, and served more than 17 years as president pro tem of the U.S. Senate, third in line to the presidency.

Infamous for his Southern drawl, Thurmond amazed America with his longevity. He was the oldest U.S. senator in history. He chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee until his mid-90s, and he continued a vigorous, daily exercise regimen well past his 96th birthday.

Thurmond’s last major act in office came in January 1999: He swore in Chief Justice William Rehnquist as the presiding officer at President Clinton’s impeachment trial.

Beyond his historic milestones, many South Carolinians remember Thurmond for his individual service to them. Tens of thousands wrote him through the decades seeking help for personal and community problems. The list includes military retirees seeking benefits, communities defending their post offices, and small towns hoping for sewer systems.

“Senator Thurmond has never been too busy to lend an ear in times of distress by others, not only by listening but taking action in order to help,” one constituent wrote in 1988.

Other South Carolinians remember Thurmond as a staunch segregationist for more than half of his political career.

His 1948 presidential campaign was launched to protest the national Democratic Party’s civil rights plank. His record filibuster in 1957 was an attempt to kill part of a civil rights bill. In the 1950s and 1960s, he condemned nearly all court rulings and congressional proposals that extended civil rights to African-Americans.

Thurmond once vowed that “there’s not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.”

But many black and white people credit Thurmond for changing his views on racial issues. He became the first Southern member of Congress to appoint a black person to his professional staff. He voted for the Voting Rights Act of 1982. And he was honored in 1995 by the presidents of historically black colleges and universities for his support of those schools.

“In most instances I am confident that we have more in common as Southerners than we have reason to oppose each other because of race,” Thurmond once told Ebony magazine. “Equality of opportunity for all is a goal upon which blacks and Southern whites can agree.”

While racial issues often gave Thurmond headlines, he clearly loved his interaction with South Carolinians more.

He was a regular visitor at community festivals throughout the state. Well into his 90's, he rode a horse in Gilbert’s annual Fourth of July peach festival. He attended that festival for the 40th consecutive year in 1998.

At nearly every festival, he spent time shaking hands with old and young alike, employing a grip legendary for its strength.

"I have helped people all my life," Thurmond said in 1997. "Who's going to help them if we don't? I get more pleasure out of helping somebody than if somebody does something for me."

Thurmond was born in Edgefield on Dec. 5, 1902, the son of John William and Eleanor Gertrude Strom Thurmond.

One of his early memories was attending stump meetings during the gubernatorial campaign of 1912, won by Cole Blease. Watching the candidates debate, Thurmond decided then he wanted to one day become governor.

He graduated from Clemson College in 1923 with a degree in horticulture. Under his picture in the Clemson annual were the words: “One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man.”

A year after graduating, Thurmond was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve. He served 36 years, rising to the rank of major general.

Between 1923 and 1929, he was a coach and teacher in McCormick, Ridge Spring and Edgefield. He was elected superintendent of education for Edgefield County in 1929, serving four years.

In 1933, Thurmond was elected to the state Senate from Edgefield County. Four years later, at age 35, he surprised many of the state’s political elite by seeking a circuit court judgeship. Despite his young age and limited senate seniority, he was elected by the General Assembly on Jan. 13, 1938.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Thurmond joined the Army. He’d just turned 39.

In 1944, he landed in Normandy on D-Day with the 82nd Airborne Division, receiving the Purple Heart because of wounds suffered when his glider crashed.

For his service in World War II, he was awarded five battle stars and 18 decorations, medals and awards, including the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster and the Bronze Star for Valor.

After the war, Thurmond chased his childhood dream by announcing his candidacy for governor in 1946. He won the Democratic primary, which in those days guaranteed election.

Some historians say Thurmond’s administration was one of the most effective in South Carolina history. During his four years in office, the poll tax was repealed, the school year was extended, and state government was streamlined.

He also fell in love. Early in his administration, the 44-year-old Thurmond developed a close friendship with one of his secretaries, a 21-year-old from Elko in Barnwell County. The governor eventually proposed marriage to Jean Crouch, but in an unusual way. On Sept. 13, 1947, he asked her to take dictation. It turned out to be her dismissal letter.

He had a “new assignment” for her, Thurmond said. They were married Nov. 7, 1947.

Thurmond’s first major act on the national stage came in 1948 when he ran for president.

A group of southern Democrats, angry about the national party’s civil rights platform, met in Birmingham, Ala., after the Democratic National Convention. The “Dixiecrats” nominated Thurmond to be their presidential candidate, with Mississippi Gov. Fielding Wright as his running mate.

The campaign was popular only in the South, where Thurmond received 39 electoral votes while carrying South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Two years later, Thurmond suffered his only election defeat, to Olin Johnston for the U.S. Senate. But he wasn’t out of politics for long. In 1954, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in a historic write-in campaign.

He entered the race after incumbent U.S. Sen. Burnet Maybank died on Sept. 1. Maybank had been unopposed in the Democratic primary that year, and no Republican had filed for the November election.

State Democratic leaders drew the ire of many South Carolinians when they shunned a second primary and nominated state Sen. Edgar Brown of Barnwell to succeed Maybank. Thurmond agreed to be an alternative candidate and waged a write-in campaign. On election day, he received 63 percent of the vote.

During the campaign, Thurmond promised that if he won, he would resign in time to create a new primary and election in 1956. He kept that promise, winning again two years later.

He was reelected seven more times.

Early in his Senate career, Thurmond was known as the “rebel with a cause,” vigorously supporting segregation, opposing social spending programs, and condemning foreign aid. He fought for what he said was the preservation of the Constitution, states' rights and individual liberty.

On Aug. 28, 1957, Thurmond launched a one-man filibuster aimed at killing a compromise civil rights proposal. He spoke nearly non-stop for 24 hours and 18 minutes, finally sitting down on the night of Aug. 29. Near the end of his filibuster, Thurmond drew a chuckle from Senate colleagues by declaring: “I expect to vote against the bill.”

The legislation passed shortly thereafter.

Tragedy struck the Thurmonds in late 1959 when Jean suffered a series of fainting spells. Doctors removed a brain tumor in September, but the treatment proved futile. Jean Thurmond died on Jan. 6, 1960.

In 1964, Thurmond boosted the Republican Party in the South by joining the GOP. The switch was timed to help Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign.

Thurmond raised a few eyebrows in 1968 when, at 66, he married for the second time. His bride was a 24-year-old former Miss South Carolina, Nancy Moore, an intern in Thurmond’s office in 1967 and 1968. Several of his aides strongly opposed the marriage, claiming it would end his political career.

The couple had four children: Nancy in 1971, Strom Jr. in 1972, Julie in 1974, and Paul in 1976.

Thurmond suffered another tragedy in 1993 when his oldest child, 22-year-old Nancy, died after being hit by a car in Columbia’s Five Points. Nancy Thurmond was crossing Harden Street about 10:30 p.m. on April 13 when she was hit by a car.

“She was our blessed angel on Earth,” Nancy’s mother said in a statement released the next day, after the Thurmonds removed their daughter from life support.

The highlight of Thurmond’s Senate career was his election as Senate president pro tem in 1981, the year Republicans gained control of that 100-member body. Thurmond also became chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and senior majority member on two committees: Armed Services and Veterans Affairs.

During his tenure as chairman, Thurmond introduced and had enacted many pieces of significant legislation, including measures dealing with child pornography, product tampering, drug trafficking, missing children, antitrust, bail and sentencing reform, insanity defense and assistance for crime victims.

In 1996, Thurmond became the oldest person to ever serve in Congress, at 93 years and three months. Then, in 1997, he became the longest-serving senator in U.S. history with 41 years and 10 months of service.

In between, he won a record eighth Senate term by beating Democrat Elliott Close 53 percent to 44 percent.

One major issue embraced by Thurmond throughout his political career was education.

He created the Strom Thurmond Foundation, which helped 40 to 60 students annually.

He established 30 scholarships at 25 educational institutions. He also set up an educational fund at Strom Thurmond High School in Edgefield County to pay for college or technical school scholarships.

He helped establish several Thurmond chairs and scholarships at the University of South Carolina Law School and donated his public papers and memorabilia to the Strom Thurmond Institute for Excellence in Government and Public Service at Clemson University.

The senator also was known for his fondness for women, the younger and more attractive the better. Many who knew him can tell stories of Thurmond talking to or touching younger women.

“I’ll hug any woman who wants to be hugged,” Thurmond said during a 1996 campaign stop in Anderson.

Thurmond preached a healthy lifestyle. He was fanatical about eating right and exercising daily. Bob Dole, during his 1996 presidential campaign at age 72, quipped: "At dinner time, I follow Strom. I eat what he eats.”

One of Thurmond’s final public appearances came in December at the unveiling of his statue on the State House grounds. Thurmond seemed to fight back tears as former governors, state officials and friends paid tribute.

“As the century draws to a close, as does my career as a elected official,” Thurmond told the gathered crowd, “I look back with great satisfaction and forward with great hope.”

He hoped young people seeing his statue and others on the State House grounds would ask themselves, “How can I make a difference? How can I serve?”

His next statement that day could have been Thurmond’s own theme for his political career.

“For it is through the contributions of our citizens who choose to serve that we remain a great nation.”

 email this | print this



Shopping & Services

Find a Job, a Car,
an Apartment,
a Home, and more...
 

LATEST LOCAL NEWS
Updated Saturday, Jun 28, 2003
Miss S.C. Pageant to air live this year - 03:01 AM EDT
America 2003 to feature Thurmond tribute - 03:01 AM EDT
Time slows when you're enjoying life - 03:01 AM EDT
Lake Murray dam traffic slowed by work - 03:01 AM EDT
Program helps students with life, college plans - 03:01 AM EDT