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Thurmond's 100 - Year Journey
Senator feted by kin, peers on Capital Hill

Newsday, December 6, 2002

 

 

  Photos: Strom Thurmond

 

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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