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Thurmond's
100 - Year Journey
Senator feted by kin, peers on Capital Hill
Newsday,
December 6, 2002
Washington
- Hundreds of Strom Thurmond's relatives, friends and colleagues gathered
on Capitol Hill yesterday to help history's oldest and longest-serving
U.S. senator celebrate his 100th birthday.
While his two sons and fellow lawmakers hailed him as a legend and role
model, Thurmond seemed most moved when his daughter, Julie Thurmond
Whitmer, told him, "You're going to become a grandpa." That will
make the South Carolina senator, who had his first child at age 68, a
grandfather for the first time.
Speaking briefly from his wheelchair, Thurmond thanked the Capitol Hill
gathering for the tribute and then added: "May God allow you to live
a long time."
Thurmond, who is retiring with the end of this session of Congress, served
for 48 years, longer than any senator in history, and goes out the oldest
man ever to serve in the Senate.
His career tracked many of the changes that took place in the South he
came to represent.
In 1948, Thurmond, then governor of South Carolina, ran for president on a
segregationist platform. He won election to the Senate in 1954, the only
write-in candidate ever to capture a Senate seat, and two years later was
an originator of the "Southern Manifesto" that urged defiance of
the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on school desegregation.
In 1957, he spoke for 24 hours on the Senate floor in opposition to civil
rights legislation, the longest filibuster in Senate history.
In 1964 Thurmond, then a Democrat, switched to the Republican Party,
helping end Democratic dominance in the South and initiating a political
shift that has given conservative Republicans the edge.
But once civil rights law became a reality, Thurmond adjusted, hiring
black staffers, entering his daughter in an integrated public school and
backing black candidates for federal judgeships.
"America outgrew old prejudices. Strom himself came to symbolize a
reasoned transformation," said former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole
(R-Kan.).
As Thurmond has redefined political durability, he nurtured a reputation
of having a fondness for younger women.
At age 66, he married 22-year-old Nancy Moore, a former Miss South
Carolina. They had two sons and two daughters before they separated in
1991.
At yesterday's tribute, in a scene reminiscent of actress Marilyn Monroe
singing "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy four
decades ago, a woman portraying Monroe serenaded Thurmond, who reached out
and touched her.
Thad Strom, a former aide and distant relative, joked that Thurmond never
misses the opening of a restaurant in the Hooters franchise, known for its
scantily clad waitresses.
Thurmond is to be feted at the White House today, and next Thursday he is
to attend ceremonies at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington when the
Air Force is to name its 100th C-17 cargo plane the "Spirit of Strom
Thurmond."
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© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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