A move to add the name of the elder daughter of the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond to his monument on the Statehouse grounds along with the names of his other children was one of the first bills introduced in the S.C. General Assembly this week and is rightly expected to be quickly approved. The consensus about Essie Mae Washington-Williams since she broke her decades of silence last month to confirm that the senator was her father is that she is indeed "a class act."
Sen. John Courson of Columbia, a former aide and longtime confidant of the late senator, is among the many who have used that term to describe the 78-year-old former schoolteacher. According to our news report, the only holdup the senator could foresee is logistical, since the monument was privately funded. Any procedural question surely can be resolved posthaste. The senator's three other children have acknowledged the legitimacy of Mrs. Washington-Williams' revelation. From the reports of their reaction, they would be among the first to contribute, if need be, to any expense incurred.
Actually, this is something the state Legislature should be able to manage on its own. Charleston Sen. Robert Ford, the sponsor of the bill, said he expects no opposition and believes the handling of the matter "will go a long way in terms of race relations in the state."
Certainly the racial climate has changed immeasurably since Essie Mae Washington-Williams was born in 1925, the daughter of a maid in the Thurmond family household in Edgefield and the 22-year Thurmond, an unmarried schoolteacher at the time. He would go on to become governor and U.S. senator. In addition to being the only successful write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate, he was known nationally for his Dixiecrat run for president, his record-breaking filibuster against Civil Rights legislation, and finally as the longest-serving senator.
The hypocrisy of his fathering a biracial child and his segregationist past has been much discussed, but not by Mrs. Washington-Williams. Instead, she has talked more about their meetings -- the first when she was 16 -- and his financial support. Neither she nor the senator chose to acknowledge her parentage during his lifetime, even though it was the subject of speculation for many years.
According to a recent article by College of Charleston professor Jack Bass, co-author of an unauthorized biography of Sen. Thurmond, it was only after the 100-year-old senator died last summer and Mrs. Washington-Williams was again contacted by the news media that she decided to set the record straight. She has done so with great dignity, and history is in her debt. She reportedly is pleased by the effort to add her name to the Thurmond monument. And, of course, that's where she belongs.
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