EDGEFIELD - Standing near a convenience store off the town square shortly before Strom Thurmond's funeral procession arrived Tuesday, Lonnie Gordon offered a less-than-glowing epitaph for the nation's longest-serving senator.

"I've lived around here all my life - and he was a racist," the 70-year-old retiree said. "I have nothing against Strom Thurmond, but against some of his ways I do."

Gordon's assessment was among the most pointed offered by black South Carolinians last week as Thurmond - whose resistance to civil rights led him to run for president as a segregationist third-party candidate in 1948 - made his final journey home.

It contrasted sharply with the glowing eulogies given hours earlier at Thurmond's funeral.

Not all blacks agree with Gordon. In interviews conducted last week, many echoed the theory put forth by U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, a white Democrat from Delaware: that Thurmond grew as he grew older; that he eventually embraced civil rights; and that redemption became attainable.

But the interviews showed that, when it comes to defining Thurmond's life at the time of his death, black South Carolinians often are more conflicted than whites. Their assessments ranged from admiration to indifference to outright hostility - sometimes all within the same conversation.

"I think it's more complicated for us because of the mixture of emotions that we have," said the Rev. James Jamison, assistant pastor at Brookland Baptist Church, as he finished a late lunch at Bert's Grill in downtown Columbia just before the funeral ended.

Jamison said he knew something about Thurmond's past but accepted the theory, offered by many last week, that the senator changed his ways.

"I agree with Sen. (Kay) Patterson that we can learn from him, that it's not too late for any of us to change," he said.

Patterson, a black Democratic state senator from Richland County, praised Thurmond in a eulogy as "a man of integrity and honor" who helped black and white people.

Waiting for the funeral procession in Edgefield, Gordon acknowledged that Thurmond sometimes helped blacks.

"But there were so many other things he could have done," he said. "You can't hate the man - the Bible teaches against that. I love him as much as anybody. But you fix up your funeral as you walk this earth every day. And I believe in the truth."

"HE WELCOMED IT"

Those closest to Thurmond, who was 100 when he died June 26 in Edgefield, say he treated everyone with respect.

"I believe the change came to him easily," Biden said in his eulogy. "I believe he welcomed it, because I watched others of his era fight that change and never ultimately change."

But some historians say Thurmond's change came late, and that it was prompted by political pragmatism more than good will. They note that he never apologized or recanted his opposition to civil rights.

USC historian Dan Carter, who is white, said the senator's transformation began in earnest after 1970, when Albert Watson was defeated in his run for governor after running a fierce segregationist campaign. Carter said other Southern politicians, including U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., realized much earlier than Thurmond that the line against racial equality would not hold.

Throughout the 1960s, Carter said, Thurmond routinely accused advocates for racial progress of having communist ties.

The senator's actions in support of progress after 1970 have been cited frequently since his death: the first Southern senator to hire a black staffer; support for renewal of the Voting Rights Act and a national holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; and support for historically black colleges.

Perhaps Thurmond's most infamous remark, also frequently cited last week, was his statement during the '48 campaign 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."

While Thurmond always insisted that he was right to break with the Democratic Party in 1948 over federal intrusion into state affairs, he hinted in 1998 that his rhetoric might have gone too far.

"There may have been some things that I could have left off," he said, "because I favor everybody receiving equal treatment."

'LIKE A LOT OF THEM'

Mattie Scott, a 90-year old resident of the NHC Healthcare nursing home on Parklane Drive, grew up between Lugoff and Camden. She remembers having to move to the back of the bus as a young woman when the white child she was caring for got off. She didn't blame Thurmond, though she said he "wasn't right about some things."

"He was just like a lot of them," she said.

Scott, severely hunched over in her wheelchair, said Thurmond's actions, like hers, would be judged by a higher power.

"God knows what I've done," she said. "He knows the right and he knows the wrong. I'm not judging him either way."

Another nursing home resident, Elaine McCloud, did not hesitate to criticize the senator.

"To tell you the truth, I don't care too much about him," said McCloud, a 40-year old New Yorker who moved to Columbia nearly four years ago after suffering a stroke. Pressed to elaborate, she called Thurmond "a bigot."

Ambivalence toward Thurmond among black residents was reflected in the events commemorating his life. Some 3,000 people attended the service on Tuesday, but perhaps 200 were black.

Former state legislator Earl Middleton, 84, drove with his longtime real estate associate, Joy W. Barnes, who is white, from Orangeburg to Edgefield to pay respects to Thurmond during the graveside ceremony - but not without some soul-searching.

"I was a little worried how it would affect me with black people," he said, his eyes fixed on the hearse carrying Thurmond. "I'm in real estate and felt that people might look at me funny."

Barnes said she encouraged Middleton to go.

"I told him, a man that's changed that much, you ought to be there if for no other reason," she said. "What if no black people came?"

Norman Dorn of Edgefield followed the casket to the cemetery and stayed for the graveside service. The middle school teacher recalled having to use the back door when going to the Thurmonds' house once. He said Thurmond had invited him there to give him money so he could pursue a master's degree.

Dorn said he was grateful for the help and was reluctant to criticize Thurmond at his funeral.

"It's not an even playing field when a man is dead," Dorn said.

'FOR THE HISTORY'

While it's often noted that in his last re-election campaign, in 1996, Thurmond garnered 20 percent of the black vote, blacks were not well-represented among the people who filed past his casket at the State House last week.

Based on observations made throughout the three-day period, it appeared that about 15 percent were black. South Carolina's overall population is 29.5 percent black, according to the latest U.S. census.

Many blacks who went declined to say much about Thurmond or the life he led.

"I'm really just here for the history," said Greg Davis, who moved to Columbia from Charlotte about two years ago.

Sonja Mack of Columbia, who wore a "Pursuing the Dream" T-shirt bearing King's likeness, expressed a similar sentiment. She said she attended to give her three children and a cousin a sense of history, "so when they go back to school, they can say they actually came out."

Others were more effusive.

"I respect him more than anything," said Gay Ferguson of Irmo, who took her 6-year-old daughter, Chandlyn, to the State House to file past Thurmond's casket Monday evening. "He's an icon to this area."

Of Thurmond's segregationist past, she said: "If God can forgive him, I can. ‘.‘.‘. Life goes on, and we've moved way beyond that."

Willie E. Henry, 81, of Winnsboro, said Thurmond "did a lot of things to help me and my race." He said, for example, that Thurmond helped an uncle obtain veterans benefits.

"At first he wasn't so good, but at the end of his career I learned to like him," Henry said.

'THE END OF THE DAY'

Perhaps most typical was the view offered by O'Neal Smalls, a USC law professor, who said he went to the State House "to pay a final respect to the senator" - but stopped short of heaping praise on Thurmond's memory.

"Now he belongs to the ages," he said.

Pressed for his appraisal of Thurmond's life, Smalls continued to choose his words carefully. He said Thurmond had done a lot of good for the people of South Carolina, black and white, but also may have given in to "political opportunism" at times.

Told that some blacks who filed past the casket said they were there more to experience history than to express devotion to Thurmond, Smalls became reflective.

"I think some of us are here in an effort to sort out the situation, to the extent that we have to or the extent we can," he said. "You really can't tell what kind of day it was until the end of the day. And now it is the end of the day for the senator. And now there is an opportunity to determine what kind of day it has been for him."

And so Smalls is doing that himself?

"I think we're still sorting it out, yes," he said. "Oh yes, I think we're still sorting it out."

Reach Stroud at (803) 771-8375 or sstroud@thestate.com. Reach Burris at (803)771-8398 or rburris@thestate.com.