(Columbia) June 26, 2003 - Strom Thurmond's remarkable political career took him from the red clay hills of Edgefield County to national fame and enormous power on Capitol Hill. The politician perhaps most associated with South Carolina died Thursday. He was 100-years-old. Thurmond was the nation's oldest serving senator, serving for 48 years from 1954 until 2001.

Thurmond was born on December 5, 1902, to a politically prominent family and politics would be his life's work.

Official Whitehouse Statement:

"The president expresses his condolences for the passing of Senator Thurmond. Strom served the people from South Carolina with distinction for decades. He earned the respect of Democrats and Republicans alike, and he will be missed."

He won his first election, as a county school superintendent, in the late 1920's. Thurmond then served in the state senate and then was elected a circuit court judge.

Strom Thurmond served with distinction in World War II, volunteering to fly a glider into France during the D-Day invasion, "Well, I wanted to see action, I've always liked action. I'm always willing to take a chance."

He won his first election as Edgefield County schools superintendent in 1928. Thurmond started his career as a Democrat.

Thurmond came back to South Carolina after the war and voters elected him governor. He ran for president in 1948 as a Dixiecrat, and won 39 Southern electroal votes, after splitting with the Democratic party over civil rights. Thurmond married Jean Crouch in 1947. She was 23 years his junior, and would die of a brain tumor in 1960.

The fighting spirit helped Thurmond in 1954 become the only person ever elected to the United States Senate on a write-in ballot.

Thurmond continued to oppose civil rights legislation during the 1950's,  setting a filibuster record in battling one bill.

Thurmond's political odyssey took another turn in 1964, when he switched parties, setting the stage for the dramatic growth of the Republican Party in South Carolina. Thurmond switched to the Republican party in 1966 to support Barry Goldwater, saying Democrats were leading the nation into a socialistic dictatorship.

Thurmond, then in his 60's, caused a stir by marrying  the much younger Nancy Moore, a former Miss South Carolina in 1968. Thurmond was 68 when their first child, Nancy, was born. The couple had three other children before separating in 1991: Strom Junior, Juliana and Paul.

Thurmond came up with a strategy that helped elect Richard Nixon president in 1968. The Thurmond Speaks strategy worked in five states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee. Four of those five states went for Mr. Nixon, but the country was changing, and Thurmond showed he could change with it.

His defiant stance on race relations would soften. In 1977, Thurmond escorted his six-year-old daughter Nancy to her first day in the first grade of a Columbia elementary school that was 50 percent black. 

Thurmond would reach out to black leaders in the 1980's, even voting for a civil rights bill, "Time brings change and you can't go too far ahead of your people, you have to lead the people as best you can."

Thurmond's power increased in  the 1980's. He would preside over the hearings for Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman Supreme Court Justice as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Strom Thurmond also had sadness in his life despite all the spectacular achievements.

His 22-year-old daughter, Nancy Moore Thurmond, was struck by a car and killed on a Columbia street in 1993. The grief Thurmond felt was etched on his face as he left the funeral service, but always, there was his work to go back to.

The senator celebrated his 100th birthday in December at the Capitol before leaving public office after 45 years in February. Thurmond's first grandchild, Martin Taylor Whitmer III, was born June 19th in Washington, DC.

posted 11:05pm by Chris Rees