Senate committee approves change to Thurmond monument

COLUMBIA, S.C. - The name of the biracial daughter of former U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond could be added to the list of his children on a Statehouse monument.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved a bill sponsored by Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, that adds the name of Essie Mae Washington-Williams to the monument honoring Thurmond.

Washington-Williams came forward last year and announced she is the daughter of the late senator and a black 16-year-old housekeeper who worked in the Thurmond family home.

Thurmond was 22 years old when Washington-Williams was born. He died last year at age 100.

The monument, with statue and base, weighs 32 tons. It was built in the late 1990s with $850,000 in private donations. The monument depicts Thurmond as he was in the 1960s - in the midst of a political career that spanned most of the past century.