Strom Thurmond's mixed race daughter dies.
Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the mixed-race daughter of one-time segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond who kept her parentage secret for more than 70 years to avoid damaging his political career, has died. She was 87.
Vann Dozier of Leevy's Funeral Home in Columbia said Washington-Williams died Sunday. A cause of death was not given.
Washington-Williams was the daughter of Thurmond and his family's black maid. The identity of her famous father was rumored for decades in political circles and the black community.
But not until after Thurmond's death in 2003 at age 100 did Washington-Williams come forward and say her father was the white man who ran for president on a segregationist platform and served in the U.S. Senate for more than 47 years.
"I am Essie Mae Washington-Williams, and at last I am completely free," Washington-Williams said at a news conference revealing her secret.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/02/04/4048988/strom-thurmonds-mixed-race-daughter.html#storylink=cpy
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Living so long with that cloud over your head, only to have such a short time free of all the secrecy and supposition?!?
I don't think he shirked his parental duties, and I guess he did the best he could manage, given his deeply ingrained bigotry. I imagine she was somewhat conflicted. Who wouldn't be?
He would have a hard time denying her, in any event--and I think he knew it in his heart:
She wrote a book (Dear Senator) about the relationship, I meant to read it but I've been a bit busy these days!
Strom was, to put it mildly, an inveterate horndog on a good day. To be more accurate, on a bad day, he was a rapist and a molester--he was the scourge of the Capitol Hill typing pools.
I truly hope that she enjoyed her years of "freedom..." 
