Thomas Moss, the first African-American congressional staffer from the South hired by Republican U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond in the early 1970s, died Wednesday after a long bout with stomach cancer.

He was 76.

The Orangeburg native worked out of the senator’s Columbia office. He was Thurmond’s main link to the black community for more than 30 years. He retired three years ago.

“He was a fine gentleman. He served the senator well,” said Duke Short, Thurmond’s longtime chief of staff. “He was a hard-working, loyal staffer. The senator was very proud to have him on his staff.”

At the time he hired Moss, Thurmond was experiencing an increasing number of requests from black citizens, and he said Moss would be “especially helpful in meeting my responsibilities to serve all the people.”

Columbia attorney I.S. Leevy Johnson said Moss was “smooth and effective. I think he adopted the emphasis of Sen. Thurmond quickly, and that is constituent service. I never heard him apologize for Senator Thurmond’s past.”

Thurmond’s hiring of Moss was symbolic of the radical political shift that was taking place among Republican leaders throughout the South.

Thurmond, chief agent of Richard M. Nixon’s lily-white Southern strategy during the 1968 campaign, started wooing South Carolina’s large black vote to save his own political life.

Evidence of this change started in the White House, where Thurmond’s former assistant and protege, presidential aide Harry Dent, had been pushing his own S.C. GOP to open its doors wide to blacks.

State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, said Moss was “a fine man. I thought he was a great guy. He really tried to help everybody.”

She said Moss was one of the first Republicans she met when she moved to Orangeburg. “He certainly will be missed. Those are shoes that will never be filled.”

Cobb-Hunter said Moss was “a real behind-the-scenes guy in the true sense of the word. A lot of people will never know the real impact he had on their lives.

“The guy has such a great history.”

For several years Moss was connected with the South Carolina Voter Education Project, organized to place more black people on the voting rolls.

Moss was a graduate of Wilkinson High School and attended Morris College. He was a deacon at the Andrews Chapel Baptist Church.

Services will be 1 p.m. today at the church with burial in the church cemetery.

Reach Bandy at (803) 771-8648 or lbandy@thestate.com.