Yabbut think of the competition. I have clear memories of, among others, Wallace, Thurmond, Eastland, Stennis, Talmadge (the younger one: Herman), Faubus, Barnett, Maddox . . . Bilbo was a little before my time, but I sure as hell knew about him. Just found this impressive rogues' gallery. I recognized well over half of them. Now I'm curious about the others. https://segregationinamerica.eji.org/segregationists
Jesse was just as bad as the ones you list! Thurmond is an interesting case. Are you aware of the Black maid who bore him a daughter?
She was 16 and he was 22, living in his parents' home. Apparently he and Essie Mae, his daughter, had a warm relationship after they finally met when she was 16 years old. He called her my "very lovely daughter". She said that no one ever asked her to keep the identity of her father a secret, but she felt that was best for his sake, and only came forward after he died at age 100 in 2003.
He supported her and paid for her to go to college. She went on to get a Masters degree, and had a successful career. He stopped supporting her after she finished college, but resumed supporting her after she was widowed at age 45. Thurmond's only marriage was to a very kind woman who was around 40 years his junior. She was a former Miss SC. His daughter, Nancy Moore, named for her mother, died when she was hit by a car just after her 22nd birthday. She was going to attend law school with a goal of working for championing children's causes. After Nancy Moore's death -- yes, we do love to use double names in the South, don't we -- her mother "was never the same" (depression and alcohol abuse, likely self-medicating). After it became public about his Black daughter, his three surviving children welcomed her and her children into the family with open arms. I think that Thurmond was publicly a racist in order to get elected, but possibly not so much privately. (Yes, I do know quite a bit about this fascinating family.)
That's more honor and decency than I would have expected from him, given his public face. So definitely there is that. But that everything can be compartmented like that - my personal life nothing like my public life, my public life making everything worse for people like I know in my private life... that's what I mean.
I TOTALLY understand what you're saying. If, by strange odds, I hadn't known him and his family, I would detest him. Orson Card put it this way: тАЬWhen you really know somebody, you canтАЩt hate them. Or maybe itтАЩs just that you canтАЩt really know them until you stop hating them.тАЭ
He was a piece of work!
You're WAY too kind.
Yabbut think of the competition. I have clear memories of, among others, Wallace, Thurmond, Eastland, Stennis, Talmadge (the younger one: Herman), Faubus, Barnett, Maddox . . . Bilbo was a little before my time, but I sure as hell knew about him. Just found this impressive rogues' gallery. I recognized well over half of them. Now I'm curious about the others. https://segregationinamerica.eji.org/segregationists
Jesse was just as bad as the ones you list! Thurmond is an interesting case. Are you aware of the Black maid who bore him a daughter?
She was 16 and he was 22, living in his parents' home. Apparently he and Essie Mae, his daughter, had a warm relationship after they finally met when she was 16 years old. He called her my "very lovely daughter". She said that no one ever asked her to keep the identity of her father a secret, but she felt that was best for his sake, and only came forward after he died at age 100 in 2003.
He supported her and paid for her to go to college. She went on to get a Masters degree, and had a successful career. He stopped supporting her after she finished college, but resumed supporting her after she was widowed at age 45. Thurmond's only marriage was to a very kind woman who was around 40 years his junior. She was a former Miss SC. His daughter, Nancy Moore, named for her mother, died when she was hit by a car just after her 22nd birthday. She was going to attend law school with a goal of working for championing children's causes. After Nancy Moore's death -- yes, we do love to use double names in the South, don't we -- her mother "was never the same" (depression and alcohol abuse, likely self-medicating). After it became public about his Black daughter, his three surviving children welcomed her and her children into the family with open arms. I think that Thurmond was publicly a racist in order to get elected, but possibly not so much privately. (Yes, I do know quite a bit about this fascinating family.)
Or perhaps he was jut another southern hypocrite. There's no hypocrisy like southern hypocrisy.
The fact that he apparently loved her, encouraged her to pursue her education, and stayed in close touch with her means something to me.
That's more honor and decency than I would have expected from him, given his public face. So definitely there is that. But that everything can be compartmented like that - my personal life nothing like my public life, my public life making everything worse for people like I know in my private life... that's what I mean.
I TOTALLY understand what you're saying. If, by strange odds, I hadn't known him and his family, I would detest him. Orson Card put it this way: тАЬWhen you really know somebody, you canтАЩt hate them. Or maybe itтАЩs just that you canтАЩt really know them until you stop hating them.тАЭ