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Woman says she's Thurmond daughter--Retired educator graduated from S.C. State

A 78-year-old retired schoolteacher has acknowledged what has been rumored among local residents for decades -- that she is the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams of Los Angeles has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday in Columbia.

Williams is coming forward now at the urging and encouragement of her children, said attorney Frank K. Wheaton.

"She's decided to come forward to bring some closure to what has been thought to be an old family secret," Wheaton told The Associated Press.

"We're not trying to upset the Thurmond estate. We are merely bringing closure to Essie Mae's life, so her children have an opportunity to know from where they come, whether those ancestors are black or white matters not. It is part of our American history."

Williams, who graduated from then-S.C. State College in Orangeburg around 1949, "was a very attractive young lady," said Gracia Dawson of Orangeburg, widow of longtime S.C. State football coach Oliver C. Dawson.

"She was going with a young man who was in the law school, and I know they married," Dawson said.

Williams lived just a few doors down from the Dawsons during part of her tenure at State and "it was pretty much common knowledge" that she was Thurmond's daughter, Dawson said.

"I never discussed anything with her about it. I wasn't that close to her," Dawson said. Still, she was one of many who heard that Thurmond, as governor, would arrive at S.C. State in a big black Cadillac for personal visits with Williams.

"I never saw the car," Dawson said.

Cecil Williams did. The Orangeburg photographer, who is not related to Essie Mae Washington Williams, was only 10 or 12 years old at the time, working as a messenger on campus.

"At the time this was going on, I was too young to fully realize what was happening there," Williams said. "I do remember in two instances seeing a black Cadillac and everyone was talking about that being the governor having come on campus to see this young lady who was supposedly the daughter of a lady who worked for him."

"As I became a stringer correspondent for Jet magazine and other publications, the press asked me to submit articles relative to actual proof, but I was never able to."

Essie Williams told The Washington Post that Thurmond privately acknowledged her as his daughter and had provided financial support since 1941. The Post reported her statements on its Web site Saturday.

Previously she had denied that Thurmond, a one-time segregationist who became the nation's oldest and longest-serving senator, was her father. Thurmond died June 26 at the age of 100.

"There was an agreement between the parties that she would never discuss the fact that Sen. Thurmond was her father," Glenn Walters, another of Williams' attorneys, told The AP. "He never denied that Ms. Washington-Williams was his daughter."

Walters said Williams was not seeking money and did not want to challenge Thurmond's will: "She simply wants the truth about her life to be told."

References to Thurmond's having an illegitimate daughter have appeared in various publications since at least as early as 1972, including The Point in Columbia, City Paper in Washington, D.C., the on-line magazine Slate and the book "Ol' Strom," by Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson. Bass also wrote the book, "The Orangeburg Massacre."

Those close to Thurmond said they were unsure about Williams' claim.

"I really don't know anything about that story, so you'll need to talk to someone else," said Thurmond's widow, Nancy Moore Thurmond. The couple separated in 1991.

Doris Strom Costner, a distant cousin of Thurmond's, said she doesn't think the claim is true. "I don't appreciate anyone coming forth after he's dead, you know? It doesn't make good sense," Costner said.

Williams told the Post she waited until now to go public with her story because she didn't want to embarrass herself or hurt Thurmond's career.

"I want to bring closure to this," she said. "It is a part of history."

In seven decades of politics, Thurmond gained fame and infamy as an arch-segregationist, but he later came to support a holiday for the slain civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Williams claims Thurmond fathered her long before his political career started, when he was a 22-year-old living in his parents' home in Edgefield. Her mother, then 16, had been working as a maid in the Thurmonds' home.

If challenged by the Thurmond family, Williams is ready to submit to DNA tests, Wheaton said.

Williams said she has documents to validate her claim, including cashier's check stubs, mementos from Thurmond and a letter from an intermediary who delivered money from the senator. She provided the Post with a copy of a 1998 Thurmond letter thanking her "for the nice Father's Day note you sent me."

She told the newspaper she received money at least once a year in sessions arranged by Thurmond's Senate staff. In recent years, as the senator's health declined, she said, financial assistance was passed through a Thurmond relative in South Carolina.

Wheaton said the amount of money Thurmond provided over the years was "a very substantial amount" but less than $1 million.

Williams' mother, Carrie Butler, was unmarried when she gave birth to her in 1925. Butler's neighbors in the impoverished section of Edgefield helped feed and clothe the child, according to Post interviews with local residents.

Butler's sister, Essie, took the child when she was 6 months old to live with a married aunt, Mary Washington, in Coatesville, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb.

Williams told the Post she first met Thurmond around 1941, when she returned to Edgefield for a visit at age 16. Her mother was suffering from an untreatable kidney disease and insisted on introducing her to her father, Williams said.

In a meeting lasting 20 to 30 minutes, Williams said, Thurmond called her a "very lovely daughter."

"I was very happy. I knew I had a father somewhere, and it was wonderful to meet him."

Williams claims she had another conversation with Thurmond in 1947, when he was governor of South Carolina and a year away from running for president on a Dixiecrat platform of segregation.

"He asked her directly, 'How does it feel to be the daughter of the governor and not be able to tell anyone about it?"' Wheaton said. "She said it felt fine."