A 78-year-old retired Los Angeles schoolteacher is breaking a lifetime of silence to say she is the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, once the nation’s leading segregationist.

The woman said Thurmond privately acknowledged her as his daughter and has provided financial support since 1941.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams described her claims in a lengthy telephone interview last week, saying she protected Thurmond because of their mutual “deep respect” and her fears that disclosure would embarrass her and harm his political career.

Thurmond, who died in June at 100, said late in life through his office that Williams was a friend.

Thurmond’s widow said Saturday she didn’t know anything about Williams’ claim.

“I really don’t know anything about that story, so you’ll need to talk to someone else,” said Nancy Moore Thurmond, who separated from the senator in 1991.

Strom Thurmond Jr. — Thurmond’s older son and the U.S. attorney for South Carolina — could not be reached for comment.

Doris Strom Costner, a distant Thurmond cousin, said she doesn’t think the claim is true: “I don’t appreciate anyone coming forth after he’s dead, you know?”

A close Thurmond friend said he didn’t know whether Williams’ claim was true. “I’m sure the senator may have sowed some wild oats in his early days, but certainly I have no information about that,” said Bettis Rainsford.

Williams, whose mother worked as a maid in the Thurmond family home as a teenager, has long been the subject of speculation. She always denied she is Thurmond’s daughter.

“I want to bring closure to this,” said Williams, who plans to hold a news conference at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Adam’s Mark hotel in downtown Columbia. “It is a part of history.”

Williams did not provide proof that she is Thurmond’s daughter. But her attorney, Frank Wheaton of Los Angeles, said she is ready to submit to DNA tests if challenged by the Thurmond family.

“There was an agreement between the parties that she would never discuss the fact that Senator Thurmond was her father,” said Orangeburg attorney Glenn Walters, another of Williams’ attorneys. “He never denied that Ms. Washington-Williams was his daughter.”

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 declined to name the intermediary, citing privacy.

As a sample of her documents, 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 said she did not want to release more documents now.

CLOSURE, NOT MONEY

Williams’ claim comes as the attorney for the Thurmond estate, J. Mark Taylor, is overseeing settlement of the senator’s estate in Columbia. Taylor said he has had no contact with Williams.

“If or when it becomes an issue, it will be addressed according to South Carolina probate law,” Columbia attorney Jim Jones, the personal representative of the Thurmond estate, said Saturday.

If a claim is made, Jones would decide its validity. His decision could be appealed.

Thurmond’s will did not acknowledge Williams or her heirs. Williams has struggled financially over the years and, in 2001, she declared personal bankruptcy, court records show.

Thurmond bequeathed cash and other items, including clothing and real estate, to his three surviving children with his estranged wife.

“Let’s be emphatically clear: We are not looking for money,” Wheaton said. “We are merely seeking closure by way of the truth for Essie Mae Washington-Williams.”

Walters said he was hired to handle issues dealing with S.C. law related to Williams’ decision to go public. He declined to say what those issues might be.

But, he added, “She made it clear when she retained our services, the senator will be respected and treated in an honorable manner because he was truly a great man. ... (She said) ‘This is not about money. This is about me seeking closure in my life.’”

In interviews over the years, Thurmond’s sisters and staff repeatedly have said Williams was only a family friend.

Williams said she met with Thurmond and received money at least once a year. In recent years, as the senator’s health declined, she said, financial assistance was passed through a prearranged conduit, a Thurmond relative in South Carolina.

The money that Thurmond provided Williams over the years was “a very substantial amount” but less than $1 million, said Wheaton, one of her attorneys.

‘I KNEW I HAD A FATHER’

Williams’ account resurrects one of the oldest stories in 20th-century Southern political folklore. Over the years, Thurmond had called the allegation that he fathered a mixed-race child too unseemly to warrant comment.

Political writer Robert Sherrill described an alleged daughter without providing a name in a 1968 book. The Post identified Williams by her maiden name in 1992, in a lengthy account of Williams’ relationship with Thurmond. The article reported “both Thurmond and the supposed daughter have denied that he is her father, and no one has provided evidence that he is.”

Williams consistently called Thurmond a “family friend” who had merely provided her with financial assistance.

“I did not want anybody to know I had an illegitimate father,” said Williams, who has four grown children. “My children convinced me to tell the truth. I want to finally answer all of these questions ... that have been following me for 50 or 60 years.”

Essie Mae was born Oct. 12, 1925, to a 16-year-old, unmarried mother, Carrie Butler, who cleaned house in the Thurmonds’ two-story home on the outskirts of strictly segregated Edgefield.

In 1925, Thurmond was 22 and living with his parents, Edgefield’s most prominent citizens. He had a job as a teacher and high school coach, although he inexplicably left town to sell Florida real estate, according to a newspaper account. Upon his return, he set out to study law under the tutelage of his father, William.

Butler’s sister, named Essie, bundled up her namesake when the child was 6 months old and took the baby to live with a married aunt, Mary Washington, in Coatesville, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb. The Washingtons gave the baby their last name.

Williams said she first met Thurmond around 1941, when she was 16 and visited Edgefield. Her mother, suffering from a untreatable kidney disease, insisted on introducing her to her father, Williams said.

Together, they walked the short distance to the Thurmond family law office. By then, Thurmond had been Edgefield County’s school superintendent, a state senator and traveling circuit judge.

In a meeting lasting 20 to 30 minutes, she 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.”

The next day, Williams said, one of Thurmond’s sisters visited the Butler home and “brought some funds to help us out.” The teenager returned to Coatesville. Her mother died soon afterward at 38.

DAYS AT S.C. STATE

Williams said she saw Thurmond again a few years later when he stopped in Philadelphia on his way back from World War II. Her aunt Mary took her to meet with him, and she said he again gave the family money. After her 1945 high school graduation, Williams contacted Thurmond.

By then, Thurmond had been elected governor and was gaining national attention for his progressive policies, including money to educate of black children and a tough stance against racial lynching. Williams said Thurmond suggested she enroll in 1946 at the all-black South Carolina State College in Orangeburg and arranged to cover her expenses.

A business major, Williams fueled campus gossip after the governor arrived in his official car to visit with her. Then-college president M.F. Whittaker arranged for the governor to meet with the student in his office. Again, Thurmond gave her money, Williams said.

Fred Fortune of Skokie, Ill., a 1950 S.C. State graduate, said Saturday he remembered seeing Thurmond come to campus four or five times to visit Williams. He said Thurmond’s car would pull up to the library, and Thurmond would meet with Williams on the second floor. During the visits — typically about 30 minutes — students would watch from nearby, Fortune said.

After a year as a progressive governor, Thurmond did an about-face in 1948 and spearheaded a Southern states’ revolt against the national Democratic Party. Thurmond became the Dixiecrat presidential candidate, espousing total racial segregation.

As rumors of Essie Mae’s relationship with Thurmond filtered through the South, leaders of an emerging civil rights movement sought to use the student as political ammunition. They arranged to secretly photograph her on campus so the pictures could be used against Thurmond, according to interviews done in the 1980s.

Williams said she and Thurmond “never talked politics,” although she did question him gently about segregationist comments that had upset some of her friends. “He said that’s just the way things were. That was his life. He was pleasing his supporters.”

Thurmond never publicly apologized for his Dixiecrat campaign, saying years later the campaign was misinterpreted. It was about states’ rights, he said, not about race.

While visiting Columbia during the late 1940s, Williams said, the governor arranged for his chauffeur-driven car to bring her to his office. Thurmond by then had married Jean Crouch, who popped her head into his office during the meeting, which became fodder for gossip.

Williams said Thurmond lectured her on the importance of exercise and proper diet, his lifelong obsessions. Then, she said, he asked a memorable question.

Williams said Thurmond asked her, “How does it feel to have your father as governor and not be able to claim him?”’ She said she told him it felt just fine.

‘RESOLVED AMONG FAMILY’

In college, Essie Mae married Julius T. Williams, a law student from Savannah, Ga. After her marriage, Williams wrote at least one letter in 1950 to outgoing Gov. Thurmond, acknowledging receipt of a loan.

The couple settled in Savannah, where Julius Williams briefly led the local NAACP. The couple had four children. When she had money problems, Williams said, she always knew Thurmond would help.

After a defeat in his 1950 primary challenge to U.S. Sen. Olin Johnston, Thurmond took a political hiatus. He re-emerged in 1954, becoming the first person elected to the U.S. Senate by write-in ballot.

By 1964, Thurmond had been in the Senate for 10 years. Williams’ need for financial aid increased dramatically when Julius died. At the time, Thurmond was leading a public fight against civil rights bills from the Senate floor.

Raising her children on death benefits, Williams turned to Thurmond, who said “he would help me until the children were grown.”

Thurmond, who lost his first wife to a brain tumor in 1960, had four children — two sons and two daughters — with his second wife, Nancy Moore Thurmond. (His older daughter, Nancy, died at 22 after she was hit by a drunken driver in 1993 in Columbia.)

Williams, who never remarried, resettled in Los Angeles, where she taught for years.. She raised her children in an attractive, low-slung house with a swimming pool. When her younger son, Ronald James — she said his middle name is meant to honor her father, James Strom Thurmond — decided to study medicine, Williams said Thurmond helped him secure a free medical education with the U.S. Navy.

At least once a year, Williams traveled to Washington, where she said she met with Thurmond in his Senate office. Thurmond’s secretary handled the bookings, Williams said. Thurmond welcomed her, she said, once escorting her to see the Senate in session. His staff grew accustomed to her visits, she said, and at the end of each trip, Thurmond gave her money. “That’s why I would go.”

Several former Thurmond staffers said Saturday they had no knowledge of Williams. But some acknowledged hearing rumors.

“If it is true, it is a very tightly held secret,” said Fourth District U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Dennis Shedd, a top aide to Thurmond from 1978-’88. “To my knowledge, I never met her. I never knew anything about her.”

Williams said Thurmond did not sign checks or send money by mail but preferred to give cash or cashier’s checks. She said he did send signed photographs, notes and other memorabilia, including the “thank you” letter for her Father’s Day card.

Williams said Thurmond also alerted her when he planned to be in California so they could visit. She said she introduced him to her children, grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

In response to media inquiries about Williams, the Thurmond camp softened its stance over the years, eventually confirming Williams visited his office.

A Washington Post article in 1992 cited a brief letter Williams sent Thurmond in Oct. 31, 1947, acknowledging receipt of a loan. A second letter from Williams to Thurmond on June 29, 1950, contained a request for $75. The letters were discovered buried among documents in Thurmond’s gubernatorial papers.

Williams over the years flatly denied Thurmond was her father.

But Williams said she began to realize her story is “a part of history,” akin to the controversy over slave Sally Hemmings’ alleged sexual relationship with Thomas Jefferson. She said she decided to reveal it before she dies. “African Americans should hear it. Everybody should hear it. They deserve to know the details,” she said.

Several years ago, unable to travel to Washington because of bad knees, Williams sent her daughter Wanda on her behalf to meet with Thurmond.

In his late 90s and hard of hearing, the senator welcomed her after reading a letter of introduction and remarked, “You look just like your mother!” Wanda Williams Terry said in a telephone interview last week.

Terry said Thurmond’s longtime chief of staff, Robert “Duke” Short, told her how much he respected Williams and “how she had managed all of these years to go without saying anything.”

Reached Friday, Short said, “I doubt I would have said that.”

In his later years, Williams said one of Thurmond’s relatives wrote her friendly letters explaining how the financial relationship would be managed. The largest payment came in the late 1990s, she said.

After his death, Thurmond’s will valued his estate at $200,000. However, in 1989, when Thurmond had a declared net worth of $2 million, he began placing assets in trusts for his children.

Thurmond estate attorney Taylor said those accounts were not included in Thurmond’s will.

Taylor said he had no knowledge of whether a trust had been set up for Williams. “Trusts are documents that are essentially private in nature. It’s between a trustee and the recipient.”

After Thurmond died, Williams hired Wheaton as her counsel and decided to write a letter to Strom Thurmond Jr. The letter expressed the hope, Wheaton said, that Williams would not have to make a claim against the estate and the matter could be “resolved among family.”

Williams said, she watched Thurmond’s funeral service in Columbia on a video someone taped for her.

“I didn’t go,” she said. “I never really felt that close to his family.”

Research editor Margot Williams and researcher Lucy Shackelford of the Washington Post; John Monk, Joseph S. Stroud and Ben Werner of The State; and the Associated Press contributed to this article