Senator Strom Thurmond's Biracial Daughter Received Money From Him While He Fought for Segregation

When Essie Mae Washington-Williams passed away at the age of 87 on Feb. 4, 2013, her obituary read like something out of a movie. It included the fact that 10 years before she died, Essie Mae revealed that she was the daughter of Senator Strom Thurmond. He was a conservative political powerhouse who spent much of his career advocating for segregation. Essie Mae's mother, Carrie Butler, was Black, and Strom was white.

Carrie was working as a maid for the senator's family when the two entered into a relationship. She was only 16 when Essie Mae was born on Oct. 12, 1925, while Senator Strom was six years her senior. The Thurmond family was from South Carolina and were staunch Republicans. As such, Essie Mae was sent away when she was just a baby. Here's what we know about the senator's secret daughter.

In January 2005, Essie Mae published her memoir. Titled Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond, Essie Mae wrote that she always believed her childhood was normal. She grew up in Coatesville, Penn., which is 40 miles outside of Philadelphia. The man she believed was her father worked on the assembly line at a steel mill while the woman she thought was her mother, stayed home. At the age of 13, Essie Mae was told who her real parents were.

Carrie's sister raised her daughter, and in 1941, Essie Mae met Senator Thurmond for the first time. "My mother introduced me and obviously then, I knew," she said during a news conference in December 2003, per The New York Times. "'I was sensitive about his well-being, his career, and his family," explained Essie Mae. "I never wanted to do anything to harm him."

Throughout the years, the senator financially supported Essie Mae but kept her emotionally at bay. He sent her checks, paid for college, and would occasionally visit her on campus in his impressive limousine. He was governor of South Carolina at the time. She was instructed to tell anyone who asked that Senator Thurmond was a family friend, though Essie Mae said no one believed that.

In 1948, Senator Thurmond ran for president on a segregationist platform. He didn't win, but he continued to advocate for segregation when he became a senator in 1955. The senator "set a record filibustering civil rights legislation in 1957, speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes," reported The New York Times. "I certainly never did like the idea that he was a segregationist, but there was nothing I could do about it," said Essie Mae.

When Essie Mae was in school at the all-Black South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, she asked the senator about his segregationist views. "Well, that’s the way things have always been," she told Dan Rather in an interview, via the Los Angeles Times. "I don’t believe he was a racist at heart. And when the times changed, he changed," she added.

She dropped out of school after meeting her husband, Julius Williams, who became one of the first graduates of the law school at South Carolina State. The two had three children, who eventually gave her several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. When Julius died in 1964, Essie Mae was 39. She took her family to Los Angeles and finished getting her degree at Cal State L.A. before earning a master’s in education from USC.

She was a teacher and administrator in the Los Angeles school district for 30 years before she retired in 1997. Essie Mae became active in her church while still fielding questions from reporters. Over the years, she was often asked about Senator Thurmond. "It’s not that Strom Thurmond ever swore me to secrecy," she wrote in her book. "He never swore me to anything."