Thurmond's daughter gets star treatment

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Just two months ago, she was virtually unknown, a retired assistant principal living in Los Angeles. But she received star treatment in her home state after revealing a tantalizing secret.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the daughter of former U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, found a warm welcome in Columbia on Saturday as she helped Allen University raise money for scholarships.

In a news conference, she revealed new details about her encounter with the Thurmond family, a pending book deal and how she's using her newfound fame.

"This is not about me," Washington-Williams said. "This is about the students and what we can do for them."

Washington-Williams said she met siblings on her father's side for the first time Friday. They ate seafood and talked mostly about "family things" during the three-hour visit, she said. She admired the art in the Aiken home of her younger half-brother, Strom Thurmond Jr.

"It was a very good visit, very fruitful," she said.

Washington-Williams revealed in December what many in South Carolina had suspected for years. She is the biracial daughter of a senator who once said the Army didn't have enough troops to force the state to end segregation.

Thurmond and his daughter kept in touch over the years, and he even paid for her college education at South Carolina State University. But Thurmond, who died at 100 last June, never publicly acknowledged her.

Washington-Williams wore a navy beret and red sweater at her appearance in the atrium outside the university "gymnatorium." She was flanked by her attorney, Frank Wheaton, and a daughter, Wanda Terry, who said she was at the dinner with her cousins.

"They were very attentive as far as my mother was concerned," Terry said. "We appreciate that. It's a good relationship, and I think it will continue."

After her news conference, Washington-Williams stayed an hour to shake hands and chat.

Thales Pearson, 66, recalled seeing her in his home when he was a teen. She and his father attended college together, he said.

Washington-Williams signed an autograph for one student. Another, Marlon Broaster, told her that he wouldn't be in college if it weren't for people like her.

"You feel like you're serving a purpose," Washington-Williams later said with a smile.

Wheaton said Washington-Williams was in the final stages of a book deal, and he hoped it would be published in the next year. A television movie will follow, he said.

Wheaton said Washington-Williams will make the rounds of colleges in a lecture series that could include the Ivy League, Clemson University and South Carolina State University. A set of commemorative coins bearing her likeness are for sale and will allow her to establish scholarships, he said.

"Essie Mae Washington-Williams, just like her father, is a very strong proponent of education," Wheaton said. "She wants to make a difference in the lives of young students."

Washington-Williams' mother, Carrie Butler, was an unmarried housekeeper at the Thurmond home. She was 16 in 1925 when her daughter was born in Aiken. Thurmond was 22.

At 6 months old, Washington-Williams went to live with an aunt in a Philadelphia suburb. She returned to South Carolina to attend college in Orangeburg and has lived in Los Angeles for about 40 years.

Washington-Williams taught business education. Later, as an assistant principal at an adult-education school, she encouraged pregnant teens and others to finish their education.

She said she hasn't visited Edgefield, her father's hometown, since college. But she has relatives on both sides in the area and plans on dropping by sometime, she said. No plans with the Thurmond family have been made, she said.

Terry said she encouraged her mother to come forward with the truth about the family patriarch. It has proven to be an interesting and rewarding experience, she said.

Terry said close friends have been asking her, "How in the world did I sit with you every day and not know this?"

Washington-Williams has four children. All but Terry live in Washington state, she said.

Terry, who runs an information technology business in the Los Angeles area, said she plans to open an office in South Carolina. Another daughter is a social worker. One son is an emergency room doctor in the Seattle area, and another supervises bus drivers.

Washington-Williams has 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

She hopes her story will foster better race relations.

"They call me biracial," she said. "I'm for both sides."

Paul Alongi can be reached at 298-4746.