So we know Strom was a racist , but was he also a rapist?

[LuLu550]

I don't know what the laws were in his state but a 22 year old having sex with a 16 year old is statutory rape where I come from. Maybe it would have been rape if she were white....

[LincolnMcGrath]

1. If she was white

and he was black, he would have died about 78 years ago.

[LuLu550]

3. excellent point

a black may would have died if white guys THOUGHT he had sex with a white woman, back then. I can't imagine!

[cosmicaug]

5. Age irrelevant.

LuLu550 wrote:

a black may would have died if white guys THOUGHT he had sex with a white woman, back then. I can't imagine!

Regardless of the ages involved.

[LuLu550]

7. yes, no question!

I think I am a liberal today because one of my first "political" memories was mob of white men rocking a school bus trying to stop it from dropping black elementary school kids off at an all white school...maybe Little Rock? I was probably only 7 or 8 (TV had just been invented for gosh sakes!)The image has stuck in my mind because I didn't understand it...why were adults trying to hurt children?....I didn't see the "black and white" of it....

[fortyfeetunder]

8. Black men DID die ....

Like 14YO Emmitt Till, who was thought to have whistled at a white woman, and was brutally and savagely murdered.

[Dookus]

2. Probably not rape...

at the time. Remember, 16 year olds were routinely married at that age back then.

My own grandmother was married at 14, to a man in his late 20's.

Doesn't mean Strom wasn't a pig, though.

[cosmicaug]

6. Age of consent.

Dookus wrote:

Probably not rape...

Age of consent in South Carolina appears to be 16 (note the girl was probably 15 at the time as she was 16 when giving birth). However, 80 years ago, things were probably different (probably more so when the victim is black). It is likely he did nothing legally wrong.

[cosmicaug]

9. Verified.

The Salon article on this confirms it was not statutory rape (note: subscription or advertisement supported day pass required):

When Thurmond and Butler conceived Washington-Williams, the age of consent for women in South Carolina was 14, so legally what transpired was not statutory rape. The union also did not break miscegenation laws of the time. According to the 1895 South Carolina Constitution, while "the marriage of a white person with a negro or mulatto or person who shall have one-eighth or more negro blood shall be unlawful or void," and "no unmarried woman shall legally consent to sexual intercourse who shall not have attained the age of fourteen years," there was no law prohibiting intercourse between a white man with a black woman.

[LuLu550]

10. thanks for checking the facts

I really was interested and nobody seemed to address it, only the hypocracy of it all...

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. Impossible to tell

I doubt he would be guilty of statutory rape, but one has to wonder whether the mother was indeed a "willing" participant, after all she was a servant.

[ArmchairActivist]

11. I'm with you, NSMA...

...statutory, schmatutory. Whether or not the mother was willing is an open, and unfortunately unanswerable question.

[Dookus]

12. I agree....

when I stated above it probably wasn't rape, I was referring only to the age of consent.

[angee_is_mad]

13. only Carrie can answer that

and she's dead. It probably wasn't forced rape, but I am sure that she was coerced.
Here is the scenerio, she was a 16yr old black maid in S.C. in the twenties and the favored son of the most prominent family wanted her. Can we imagine what her life was like in that time? Can we imagine what decisions she may have made to make her life easier?
It is also my understanding that Strom and Carrie carried on for a length of time, that's why his parents had to get him the HELL out of S.C. I guess they were afraid "once you go black there's not turning back."
Most white men who raped black women at that time didn't pay for their illegimate mixed race daughter's education and continue to give her handouts several years later. This shows me that Carrie had some kind of hold on Ol Strom.
But he probably still gonna bust Hell wide open.

[Paul Hood]

14. Strom was also

a serial groper.

So deep is the reflex to avoid further humiliation that even U.S. Senator Patty Murray kept silent when Strom Thurmond groped her in an elevator. Another senator, Bob Packwood, was forced to resign

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16993

[angee_is_mad]

15. Oh my GOD!!

Dirty old bastard!!! But I guess that's the only thing he could do for the past 30yrs was grope.