Strom Thurmond

The Rev. Al Sharpton said Sunday it was the "most shocking" news of his life when the civil rights leader learned he was a descendant of a slave owned by relatives of Strom Thurmond, the late senator who once led the segregationist South. "I couldn't describe the emotions that I've had over the last two or three days thinking about this," he said at a news conference. "Everything from anger and outrage to reflection, and to some pride and glory."

The Rev. Al Sharpton said he wants a DNA test to determine whether he is related to former segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond through his great-grandfather, a slave owned by an ancestor of the late senator. "I can't find out anything more shocking than I've already learned," Sharpton told the Daily News. Professional genealogists found that Sharpton's great-grandfather, Coleman Sharpton, was a slave owned by Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was Strom Thurmond's great-great-grandfather.

Re "Sharpton's ancestor was owned by Thurmond kin," Feb. 26 Modern technology enables us to confirm specific instances of what was previously understood only in generalities. The sweat of the brows of the Rev. Al Sharpton's ancestors created huge wealth for the Thurmond family, which was expropriated forcibly and without consent from the Sharptons. That wealth has been handed down as a free and unearned inheritance to the Thurmond family, while Sharpton's legacy was that his family had to flee the South and claw its way up through squalid conditions of Northern urban poverty, such that everything Sharpton has achieved today is truly self-made -- and the wealth of the Thurmonds is also Sharpton-made.

LAST WEEK, I received the shock of my life. I found out that my family was enslaved by the family of the leading segregationist of our time, the late Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. I don't know whether Thurmond himself was my blood relative; there has been no DNA testing yet. What I do know now is the horrific details of how my great-grandfather and family were slaves, directly owned and leased out like chattel animals. This revelation about my ancestors has made slavery real to me.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams, who revealed late last year that she is the biracial daughter of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, was showered with praise from her family and others at a banquet in Columbia to raise money for education. Washington-Williams also met Thurmond's other children on her trip home to South Carolina, enjoying dinner at the home of Strom Thurmond Jr. "It was a good visit, very fruitful," the retired Los Angeles teacher said, but she brushed off more-personal questions.

The name of Strom Thurmond's biracial daughter was added to his monument on the Statehouse grounds in Columbia -- further public acknowledgment of what had once been a closely held secret. It took two hours to engrave "Essie Mae" under the names of the late senator's four children with his second wife, Nancy. "We are so grateful that it moves one to tears of joy and gratitude," said Frank Wheaton, attorney for Essie Mae Washington Williams.

I've watched Steve Lavin lose to perennial basketball powerhouses such as Northern Arizona and the University of San Diego, and now he blows the USC game. Can anyone check to see if Lavin ever voted for Strom Thurmond? Billy Stine Torrance As a Bruin alumnus, nothing irks me more than the chant "Just like football!" bellowed from the rafters of sacred Pauley Pavilion. After years of riding the coattails of talented Bruin players, Steve Lavin's coaching ability is painfully being exposed with this year's relatively inexperienced team.

For many blacks, Strom Thurmond could never have lived long enough for them to forget his segregationist past. But as far as 104-year-old Mamie Rearden is concerned, he lasted long enough for her and other blacks to at least forgive. "They forgive him for the things that he did wrong, and they remember you can change," she said from her home here, where the home-grown governor and U.S. senator died Thursday at the age of 100.

Hundreds of people lined up in oppressive heat Sunday at the South Carolina Statehouse to pay respects to Strom Thurmond, lying in state in a flag-draped casket, his World War II medals nearby. The onetime arch segregationist was 100 when he died Thursday at a hospital in his hometown of Edgefield, about 60 miles from Columbia. The longest-serving senator in history, he left the U.S. Senate five months ago.

The death of former Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) reminds us that racists have been extraordinarily powerful in our government (obituary, June 27). He fought against civil rights legislation and became the longest-serving senator in our history. As the senior Republican he was at times in the line of succession to become president. Thank you for quoting this disgusting man's remarks on the "Negro." The current Senate majority leader described him as a "close friend, confidant and colleague of most of us in this body," which says a great deal about him and the Senate today.