Sharpton's ancestor was owned by Thurmond kin

But his political stance later mellowed.

Sharpton said he found it ironic that Thurmond "ran for president as the segregationist candidate in 1948, and I'm the great-grandson of a slave who ran for president on a civil rights platform."

Sharpton, who made a White House bid in 2004, once compared Thurmond's secret that he had a half-black daughter to the Democratic Party's relationship with black voters -- saying both had been treated as situations to be kept "in the background."

Thurmond's family has acknowledged that he had a daughter -- Essie Mae Washington Williams -- with his parents' housekeeper, who was black.

Sharpton said it was hard to relate to Washington Williams' connection to Thurmond because "her situation was based on a relationship," he said. "This was based on property."

Sharpton became active in the civil rights movement in the late 1960s, when he was appointed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson to help improve job opportunities for black people.

He has since become a national figure seeking racial and social justice, speaking out on issues such as police brutality.

In 2002, Sharpton called for the resignation of then-Senate Republican leader Trent Lott after he said that his state of Mississippi was proud to have voted for Thurmond in 1948. "If the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either," Lott said. He later apologized for his remarks.

Sharpton said the recent news brought back memories of when he led the protests against Lott, who later resigned from the leadership position, as well as conversations he had over the years with civil rights leaders such as Jackson about the man they disagreed with over issues of segregation.

"Thurmond," he said, "was always the symbol of what we detested."

Sharpton said his connection to Thurmond "makes me feel my destiny was to fight for civil rights, and do what my great-grandfather wanted me to do."

erika.hayasaki@latimes.com