BLUFFTON -- Strom Thurmond's evolution from a staunch segregationist to a politician who appealed to black voters to stay in power is, in many ways, seen best through the eyes of 74-year-old Bluffton resident Jacob Martin.

More than 50 years ago, when he was governor of South Carolina, Thurmond kept Martin, who is black, from going to law school at the University of South Carolina. Some 30 years later, Martin would cast the first of many votes for Thurmond, who died Thursday at the age of 100.

The story, as Martin told it Friday, goes like this:

In 1950, Martin applied to the USC law school -- the first black person to do so since Reconstruction. And the law school dean, Martin said, was inclined to accept him.

But Thurmond had other plans.

The then-governor of South Carolina cut short a vacation to convince university officials to deny Martin's admission, Martin said.

He still remembers the newspaper headline: "Governor to deny admission."

"My feeling was to fight back," Martin said.

Martin sought help from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. But the NAACP, he said, was preoccupied with fighting segregation of the schools in a case that would come to the U.S. Supreme Court under the landmark Brown v. Board of Education.

Martin never went to law school.

Instead, he became a police officer in Detroit, where he would eventually command the largest and most white precinct in the city, he said.

Martin said he has "no regrets about becoming a police officer," noting that, on the job, he "spent more time in courts than some lawyers."

After retiring in 1979, Martin moved back to Bluffton.

By that time, Thurmond was in his fifth term as U.S. senator. And when it came time to vote, Martin marked the name of the man who, in many ways, killed his law school dreams.

Why would he do this?

Martin's answer reveals much about how Thurmond became the longest-serving senator in U.S. history.

"He delivered for his constituency," Martin said. "When it came to South Carolina, it didn't make a lot of difference if you were black or white in terms of bringing home the bacon."

Thurmond usually got the support of the state's several small-town black mayors, Martin said. The senator's relationship with the mayors epitomized the kind of in-the-trenches, practical politics Thurmond made famous.

"If they called on Sen. Thurmond for a need their community had, he delivered. So they'd support him," Martin said.

During the post-civil rights era, Thurmond prided himself on getting the support of the state's black mayors association, Martin said. And the senator, it seems, would go to great lengths to cement that support.

One year, Martin said, Thurmond heard that the then-mayor of the town of Port Royal, Henry Robinson, was not supporting the senator's re-election campaign.

So Thurmond worked his network of black supporters, including Martin and a Charleston businessman for whom the senator had helped secure government contracts.

It turned out that Robinson actually had supported Thurmond, but the senator, for his ego more than anything else, wanted to make sure, Martin said.

Practical politics aside, Martin said he doesn't hold a grudge against the man who kept him from law school.

"I'm not personal about what happened to me," he said. "I don't relive that anymore."