A woman, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, broke a lifetime of silence over the weekend to say that she is the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Her mother worked as a maid for Thurmond when she became pregnant. The woman, now 78, claimed Thurmond privately acknowledged her as his daughter and has provided financial support since 1941. Today, CNN is reporting that an attorney for the family “confirmed that at the age of 22, Thurmond fathered a child with a teenaged African-American housekeeper in 1925.”
Thurmond, of course, was the nation
