A man spent 50 years fighting for black rights. He was a United States senator and a presidential candidate. The face of segregation in America. He spoke for 24 hours straight to block a civil rights bill . He fought against the integration of schools. She fought against interracial marriage.
Every right that African Americans tried to gain, he blocked for half a century, but he had a secret. She had a black daughter. Her name was Essie May. Her mother was a teenage domestic worker. His father was Strom Thurmon, the same man who would become the symbol of white supremacy, the same man who would fight against his own race for decades.
Esimé grew up knowing who her father was, but she could never say it because he was white, she was black, and in the South that was impossible. Since the leader of the segregationist movement had a daughter with a black employee, how could a man secretly visit his daughter while attacking black people in public? How did he live with that contradiction for decades? And why did she protect a man who never protected her? This is the story of the greatest hypocrisy in American politics.
The story that began in 1925 when a 15-year-old girl worked in the wrong house and ended up being the secret that no one imagined existed. South Carolina, United States, 1925, The Deep South, 59 years after the end of slavery. But segregation was still the law. Blacks and whites lived in separate worlds, separate schools, separate restaurants, separate bathrooms, separate water sources, and above all, there was an absolute prohibition of inter-race relations.
Anti-miscegenation laws punished interracial marriage with imprisonment. Southern society considered any relationship between a white man and a black woman an abomination, but that didn’t mean it did n’t happen. It all happened in secret, in the dark, away from public view. In Edfield, South Carolina, lived the Thurmond family, a prominent, respected, white family.
John William Turmund. He was a lawyer and a politician. His wife Elenor managed the house and his 22-year-old son, James Strom Thurmond, had just graduated from college. He was a promising, intelligent, ambitious young man with a whole political career ahead of him. The Thurmond family had domestic servants, as did all prominent white families in the South.
One of those employees was Carry Butler. I was 15 years old. She was black, she was small, she was quiet. He did his job without drawing attention to himself. She cleaned the house, did the laundry, served the food, and lived under the same roof as the Thurmon family. Before we continue with this story, we want to ask you something.
If you haven’t already, subscribe to our channel and turn on notifications so you don’t miss any stories. Also, let us know in the comments what country you’re watching from. It helps us a lot to continue bringing these stories to light, stories that official history preferred to hide. Carry Butler started working at the Thurmond family home when she was 14 years old.
His family was poor; they needed the money. Options for a black girl in South Carolina in 1925 were limited. She could work in the cotton fields under the scorching sun or she could work as a domestic servant in the home of a white family. The second option was better. There was a roof over my head, food, and a small but regular salary.
Carry chose that option. Or rather, her family chose her for her. At 14 years old, Carry began cleaning the Tmonds’ house, washing their clothes, serving their food, and living under their roof. Strom Thmond was 22 years old, tall, athletic, had been an athlete in college, and had just graduated with a degree in horticulture.
But agriculture was not his true ambition. He wanted to be a lawyer, he wanted to be a politician like his father. The Thormond family was respected in Edfield. His father had been the county prosecutor. His last name carried weight. Strom had all the advantages a young white man from the South could have in 1925, and Carry had none.
It is not clear exactly when it began. The sources don’t say. Carry never spoke. publicly about it. Strom never admitted it while he was alive. But sometime in 1925, Strom Thurmon and Carry Butler began a relationship. He was 22, she was 15. He was the son of the family, she was the maid, he was white, she was black, he was free to do whatever he wanted.
She had no real options. In South Carolina, in 1925, a 15-year-old black domestic worker could not say no to her employers’ 22-year-old son . That is the nature of power. That’s the nature of the Deep South. It didn’t matter if there was affection, it didn’t matter if there were soft words, the power between them was so unequal that the word consent had no real meaning.
Carry became pregnant. She was 15, maybe 16. Records are unclear about her exact date of birth, but she was a teenager, a child, and she was pregnant with her employers’ child. In the South in 1925 that was a catastrophic scandal, not for Strom, but for Carry. Anti-misegation laws prohibited relationships between whites and blacks, but those laws were mainly enforced when a black man had a relationship with a white woman.
When it was the other way around, when a white man had a relationship with a black woman, the laws looked the other way. The black woman carried the shame, the social punishment, the consequences. The white man went on with his life. The Thurmond family had to protect their reputation. Strom had political ambitions.
An illegitimate child with a teenage black employee would destroy those ambitions before they even began. Then they took action. Carry was sent away before the pregnancy became visible. She was sent to live with relatives in another county, far from Edgecheld, far from prying eyes, far from awkward questions. Carry gave birth on October 12, 1925.
She had a daughter, they named her Es May. The baby had fair skin, very fair. She had features that anyone could recognize. He had the face of the Thurmonds, but nobody would say that out loud. Not in the South, not in 1925. Carry returned to Edfield with her baby, but she couldn’t stay.
She couldn’t raise her daughter there. Everyone would know, everyone would suspect. The Thurmonds couldn’t allow that. So, when he was 6 months old, Carry made a decision. Or perhaps the decision was made by her. She sent her baby away to Pennsylvania to live with her sister Mary and brother-in-law John Henry Washington.
Es May would grow up in the north, far from South Carolina, far from the Thurmonds, far from her father. Carry stayed in the south, worked, sent money when she could, visited when she could, but her daughter grew up without her. Es May Washington grew up in Coatsville, Pennsylvania, an industrial city 40 miles from Philadelphia.
His uncle John Henry worked in a steel factory. Her aunt Mary raised her as if she were her own daughter. May believed that Mary was her mother. She believed that John Henry was her father. I thought I had a normal life. A black girl in a working-class family in the north was going to school. He played with other children.
I knew nothing about South Carolina. I knew nothing about the Turmon. He didn’t know who his father really was. He lived the first 13 years of his life without knowing the truth. Meanwhile, Strom Thurmond was building his career. He became a teacher, then a lawyer. He began to get involved in politics. He remained single, focused entirely on his political rise.
A respectable life, a public life. Strom never mentioned Carry, he never mentioned May, nobody in Edfield talked about it. If some suspected anything, they kept quiet. That’s how the south worked. Secrets were kept, especially secrets involving prominent families, especially secrets involving white men and black women.
Those secrets were buried deep and remained buried for decades. In 1938, when May was 13 years old, everything changed. His father, John Henry Washington, disappeared from his life. Her parents divorced. Mary never explained why. Mayy learned not to ask questions. In Mary’s family, fewer questions were always better.
But that summer a tall, elegant woman came to visit. Mary introduced her as Aunt Carry. She was mesmerized. There was something about that woman, something magnetic. I followed her all over the house. He observed every movement, every gesture. She felt a connection she couldn’t explain, an inexplicable attraction towards that stranger they said was her aunt.
One day Carie and Mary were talking in the kitchen. It was Mayy who heard from the hallway. She didn’t want to interrupt, but she heard his name. He heard Carry crying. He heard Mary say that it was time. What is time? May didn’t know. Then Mary called Es May and told her to sit down. I had something to tell him, something important.
Mary took Sy May’s hand, looked at Carry, and then said the words that would change everything. Carry was not his aunt. Carry was his mother. Mary was not his mother. Mary was his aunt. Everything Esmei had believed for 13 years was a lie. His entire life was a lie. I didn’t know what to say, I did n’t know what to feel.
He looked at Carry, the tall, elegant woman he had admired. That was her mother, her real mother, the woman who had given birth to her, the woman who had sent her away when she was a baby. Es May had 1000 questions, but only asked one, the most important one. If Carry was his mother, who was his father? Carry looked at Mary. Mary nodded and Carry said a name.
A name that May didn’t know. A name that still meant nothing to her. Strom Turmont. That was his father’s name. A man who lived in South Carolina. A man who had never met me. A man who, according to Carry, could not publicly acknowledge her, could never acknowledge her because he was white and she was black, and in the South that was impossible.
Three years passed after Mei discovered the truth. 3 years processing the information. three years knowing that her father was a white man in South Carolina, a man who could not recognize her, a man whose name she now knew, but whose face she had never seen. In 1941, Carry fell ill. It wasn’t anything serious, but it was enough for Esimae, now 16, to travel south to take care of her.
It was her first time in South Carolina, her first time in the place where she was born. And Carry had plans, plans she had been putting off for 16 years. It was time for Mei to meet her father. Carry arranged the meeting in secret. It couldn’t be at the Thurmon house. It couldn’t be in public.
It had to be in a private place, somewhere where no one could see them. Carry and Es May drove to a single-story white building, a law office. The sign read Turmond and Turmond Attorneys. May thought her father was the chorer of some important lawyer. I didn’t understand why they were there. They entered the building.
Carry led her down a corridor to a large office. Shelves full of law books from floor to ceiling, diplomas on the walls, legal documents on the desk, and then he entered. Strom Thurmon was 38 years old, tall, with dark hair, dressed in an impeccable suit. He looked at Carry for a long moment. Then he looked at Esim.
He stared at her, studying her face, her features, looking for something familiar, looking for himself in her. Finally, he spoke. He told Carry that she had a beautiful daughter. May couldn’t speak, she was paralyzed. Carry smiled, turned to Es Mey and said the words the little girl had been waiting to hear. It’s Mae, meet your father.
Mae couldn’t say a single word. Strom didn’t seem to know what to say either. So he did what he knew how to do. He began to talk about history, about the South Carolina state seal, about education, about safe things, things that did n’t require speaking the truth, about their relationship, about the 16 years that had passed.
The conversation was brief, awkward, and full of heavy silences. Strom didn’t hug her, didn’t hold her hand, didn’t make any gesture of paternal affection, he only spoke, only looked at her and then the encounter ended. Carry and Esime. They drove back in silence. Esime had met her father, but it didn’t feel like a father- daughter reunion.
It felt like a business meeting: cold and formal. distant. That would be the nature of their relationship for the next 62 years. Distant, secretive, full of boundaries that could never be crossed. After that meeting, Strom began sending money. Not often, but regularly. Carry would receive it and send it to Pennsylvania for IAE.
When May finished high school, she wanted to go to college, but her family didn’t have the money. Carry contacted Strom. Strom agreed to pay. In 1947, May enrolled at South Carolina State College, a historically black college in Orangburg, South Carolina. Strom paid the full tuition, but with an implicit condition.
Nobody could know, nobody could know that Strom Turmond was paying for the education of a black student. Nobody could know why. While Mae was studying at a black college, Strom Turmont was rising in politics. In 1947 he became governor of South Carolina. He was 44 years old. He was young, charismatic, ambitious, and began to build his reputation as a defender of states’ rights, a defender of segregation, a defender of racial separation.
In his speeches he talked about the importance of maintaining racial purity, about the danger of integration, about the need to keep whites and blacks separate. All this while his black daughter was studying at a university just 100 miles away, a university he visited regularly. Strom went to South Carolina State College often.
He arrived in his government limousine, the governor’s limousine, black, shiny, impossible to ignore. The students saw him arrive, they saw him enter the university president’s office . He would spend time there, then go out, sometimes he would sit in the central courtyard and pee in plain sight. They were talking.
He would ask her about her classes, about her plans, he would give her money, folded bills that he would pass to her discreetly. The other students saw it, knew about it, or suspected it, but nobody said anything. Nobody dared to accuse the governor of South Carolina of having a black daughter. That was impossible, unthinkable.
And yet, everyone saw it, everyone knew it. In 1948, Strom Thurmon made the decision that would define his career. The United States was changing. President Harry Truman had ordered the desegregation of the armed forces and had proposed civil rights laws. Southern Democrats were furious. They saw this as an attack on their way of life, as a betrayal of southern values.
Strom Turmon led the rebellion. At the 1948 Democratic convention, Southern Democrats walked out of the hall in protest. They formed their own party, the States’ Rights Party , the Dixie Crats, and nominated Strom Thmon as their presidential candidate. Strom campaigned on a completely segregationist platform. He promised to maintain the separation of the races.
He vowed to fight against integration. He vowed to protect the white South from what he called the tyranny of the federal government. He traveled throughout the South giving impassioned speeches. He spoke about racial purity, about the right of states to maintain their own laws, about the danger of allowing blacks and whites to mix.
And in every speech, in every rally, in every campaign event, there was a truth that no one knew. The man who fought against interracial marriage had a daughter from an interracial relationship. The man who talked about keeping the races separate had mixed blood in his own family. The hypocrisy was total and it was invisible.
Strom did not win the presidency, but he did win four states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina. One million votes. It was one of the most successful third-party candidacies in American history and solidified his reputation. as the leader of the segregationist movement, as the defender of the white South, as the enemy of civil rights.
But while celebrating her electoral success, May continued studying at South Carolina State College. He continued to receive his money, it remained his secret, the secret he protected more than anything else, more than his reputation, more than his career. Because revealing that secret would destroy everything he had built.
In 1948, Esimo to Julius Williams, a law student. They fell in love, they got married. In 1949 they had their first child. Esimee left college to raise her family. She moved away, went on with her life, but Strom kept sending money, kept visiting her whenever he could, when nobody was looking, when he could do it in private.
The relationship remained distant, secretive, and full of limitations, but it continued for decades. In 1954, Strom Turmund was elected to the United States Senate. He did so as an independent candidate, writing his name on the ballot, an unprecedented achievement. He became a senator and for the next 49 years would become the most prominent voice against civil rights across the United States.
The man who fought hardest to maintain segregation, the man who most resisted every advance that African Americans tried to achieve. And all that time he had a black daughter who kept his secret, a daughter who protected him, a daughter who chose silence over the truth, because that was the only option she had been given. As a United States senator, Strom Thurmond became the most visible enemy of civil rights.
He wasn’t just another segregationist politician, he was the leader, the most vocal, the most inflexible. the most willing to fight to the end to maintain the separation of the races. And while he fought in the senate, Esimae lived her life in silence, raising her children, working as a teacher, visiting her father in secret when she could, keeping the secret that could destroy everything he had built.
In 1957, the Senate debated the Civil Rights Act , a modest law that sought to protect the right to vote of African Americans, a law that many considered the first step towards real equality. Strom Turmund saw the law as a threat, as the beginning of the end for the South he knew. He decided to do something that no one had ever done before.
He decided to talk until he could talk no more. On August 28, 1957, Strom Turmon began a Philibuster. A Philiboster is a long speech designed to delay or block a vote. But what Strom did that day surpassed everything that had come before. He spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes without stopping, without sitting down, without rest.
He set a record that remains to this day. During those 24 hours, Strom spoke about the Constitution, about states’ rights , about the tyranny of the federal government, about the danger of forcing integration. He read the electoral laws of each state, he read the declaration of independence, he read everything he could to fill the time, to delay the vote, to show his absolute opposition to any law that would give rights to black people.
As she spoke, Esimae was in Los Angeles raising her four children, working in the school district, living as a Black woman in America, a woman who faced discrimination every day, a woman whose children faced the same barriers that Strom fought to maintain. And his father was the man in the Senate speaking for 24 hours to make sure those barriers remained.
The law passed anyway . Strom’s filiboer didn’t stop her, but it established him as a hero to the segregationists, as a man willing to sacrifice everything for his principles, as the last defender of the white South. The newspapers in the south praised him. The voters loved him. She became a legend and nobody knew she had a black daughter.
Nobody knew that the woman whose education he had paid for was the same woman whose race he publicly despised. Nobody knew the truth, except her, and she remained silent. During the 1950s and 1960s, he occasionally tried to talk to Strom. about racism, about segregation, about the laws that kept black people as second-class citizens.
But Strom kept changing the subject. I didn’t want to discuss politics with her. She didn’t want to hear her complaints about segregated facilities, about separate schools, about the injustice she faced every day. He was her father, but he was also the architect of that injustice and he wasn’t going to change, not for her, not for anyone.
In 1964, Essi Maye’s husband, Julius Williams, died. Esim was widowed with four children. She moved to Los Angeles. He completed his university education. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in 1969. Later, she earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Southern California. She worked as a teacher in the Los Angeles school district for 30 years, from 1967 to 1997.
During all that time, Strom remained a senator. He continued to send her money when she needed it. He continued to visit her whenever he could in Washington DC, at her Senate office. I was going to visit him. The security guards knew her. They knew the senator had a regular visitor, a black woman who came to see him privately, but they never asked, they never said anything.
In the south, some rumors were best left as rumors. In 1976, Strom did something unusual. He nominated Matthew Jotta Perry, a black man, for a federal judicial position. He was the first Southern senator to nominate an African American for a federal judicial position . The media praised him. They said that Strom was changing, that he was leaving his segregationist past behind , but there was one detail that nobody knew.
Matthew Goji Perry had briefly dated Es May in 1947 at South Carolina State College, shortly before she met her husband. S May believed that her influence had mattered, that her private conversations with her father over the years had had an effect, that he was finally beginning to see black people as people, as citizens, as equals.
Maybe he was right, maybe he was n’t, but Strom never admitted it publicly. Over the years, Strom moderated some of his positions. He stopped speaking so openly about segregation. He hired black staff in his office. He began voting in favor of some civil rights laws. Critics said it was just politics, that South Carolina was changing, that he had to adapt to keep getting elected.
The defenders said that he had grown, that he had learned, that he had changed his mind. Mae wanted to believe that she had influenced that change, that her private conversations had mattered, that somehow her existence had made a difference, but she could never know for sure because Strom never said so, never admitted that he had a black daughter, never acknowledged the conflict between his public and private life, never explained how he could love his daughter while fighting against her race.
The years passed. Strom continued to be re-elected time and time again. He became the oldest senator in U.S. history. He served until he was 100 years old, 50 years in total, half a century in the Senate. And during all that time, Esimae kept the secret. His children knew, his family knew. Some close friends knew, but the public did not .
The media didn’t know, history did n’t know. Esimai protected his father, he protected him from shame, from exposure, from the scandal that would destroy his legacy, because he protected him, perhaps out of loyalty, perhaps out of love, perhaps because he had been his father in the only way he could be, secretly, from a distance.
but present in some way, sending money, visiting when he could, being part of her life in the only way the South allowed. In June 2003, Strom Turmont died. He was 100 years old. He had lived a full century. Newspapers published lengthy obituaries. They talked about his long career, his Philip Booster record, and his evolution from ardent segregationist to moderate senator.
They talked about his military service in World War II , his four legitimate children with his wife, his complicated legacy, but they didn’t talk about IAE because no one knew the secret had survived. For 78 years, the secret had remained buried, and with Strom dead it seemed that it would die with him. But Esime’s children had other plans.
They had grown up with the secret. They had seen their mother protect a man who never publicly acknowledged her. They had seen the hypocrisy and thought that was enough. It was about time the world knew the truth. It was time for Esimé to reclaim her place in history. It was time for Strom Thurmond’s legacy to include the whole truth, not just the part he wanted the world to see.
Six months after Strom Thurmond’s death, May Washington Williams called a press conference. It was December 2003. Esime was 78 years old. She had kept the secret her entire life. 78 years of silence. 78 years protecting a man who never publicly acknowledged her. 78 years living as a secret. But no more. Her children had convinced her.
It was time to tell the truth, not for money. The Thurmund family did not legally owe him anything. The statute of limitations had expired decades ago. It was for something more important, for legitimacy, for recognition, for her place in history, to claim her identity as the daughter of Strom Turmont. The press conference was broadcast live by all news networks. S.
May sat in front of the cameras calm, dignified, and direct. He said the words that would change everything. Strom Turmund was his father. Carry Butler, a 15-year-old domestic worker, was his mother. She was born in October 1925. She met her father in 1941. He had paid for her education, sent money for decades, visited her privately, been a part of her life, but never publicly acknowledged her, never gave her his surname, never called her his daughter in front of anyone, and she had accepted that because that was the only option she had been
given. But now he was dead and she wanted the world to know the truth. The media exploded. The story was front-page news in every newspaper, on every television network, and on every news website. The segregationist senator had a black daughter. The man who had fought for civil rights for 50 years had a daughter from an interracial relationship.
The man who had set Philbustoser’s record by speaking out against a civil rights law had secretly paid for his black daughter’s education. The hypocrisy was total, it was undeniable, it was scandalous. Yai had proof, she had documents, she had records of the payments, she had witnesses who had seen her with Strom for decades, she had a complete and verifiable story.
The Thurmon family could have denied it. They could have said that I was lying to you, that I was seeking attention, that I wanted money, but they didn’t. Two days after the press conference, the Thurmon family issued a statement. They confirmed that May Washington Williams was Strom Turmon’s daughter.
They acknowledged his paternity and welcomed him into the family. The senator’s family, his four legitimate children, accepted that they had a half-sister, a half- sister who had existed in the shadows for 78 years. A half- sister who now claimed her rightful place in the Tarmond family. In 2004, the state of South Carolina added Essi Mae’s name to the list of Thurmund’s children at the senator’s memorial on the grounds of the state Capitol.
His name was engraved in stone next to the names of his half-brothers. Officially, publicly, forever. In 2005, Mae published her memoirs. The book was titled Dear Senator. A memo by the daughter of Strom Thurmond. Dear Senator, a memoir from Strom Thurmond’s daughter . The book was nominated for the National Book Award, it was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Es May told the whole story. His childhood in Pennsylvania, the moment he discovered who his mother was, the first meeting with his father, the years of secrecy, the private visits, the money sent in envelopes, the conversations about racism that his father never wanted to have, it was all there in his own words.
The book revealed details that many found disturbing. Es Mee wrote that she had never wanted to hurt her father, that she had been sensitive to his well-being, his career, and his family in South Carolina, and that was why she had remained silent. But she also wrote about the contradiction, about how her father could visit her privately while fighting against his race in public, about how he could pay for her education while blocking laws that would have given equal education to other black children, about how he could be her
father in secret, but the enemy of his race in public. Mae never resolved that contradiction. I could n’t because it didn’t make sense, it never did. In the book Esimae he also wrote about something else. She wrote that she believed she had had an impact on her father, that their private conversations had influenced his decisions, that when he began to moderate his positions in the 1970s and 1980s, it was partly because of her, because of getting to know her, because of seeing her as a person, as his daughter, not just as a Black woman.
Some historians believe that May was right, that Strom changed, albeit slowly, because he had a personal connection with the community he had spent decades attacking. Others believe it was just politics, that Carolina was changing and Strom changed with her to stay relevant. The truth is probably somewhere in between, but we’ll never know for sure, because Strom never said.
He died without admitting anything publicly. Es May lived 10 more years after revealing her secret. He died on February 4, 2013. He was 87 years old. Her obituaries described her as a teacher, as an author, as Strom Thurmon’s secret daughter , as the woman who finally revealed one of the greatest hypocrisies in American politics.
He lived long enough to see his name on his father’s monument, to see his story recognized, to reclaim his identity, to have peace. During the 2003 interview, he was asked why he had waited so long, why he had kept the secret for 78 years. “It’s Mae,” she replied simply. He never meant to hurt her, he never meant to destroy her career.
He never wanted to cause problems for his family. He was sensitive to her well-being, even when he was not sensitive to hers, even when he fought against the rights of people like her. Even when he set records by speaking out to deny rights to his own race, she protected him until he died and only then allowed herself to reclaim her truth.
The story of May Washington Williams is the story of the secrets of the South, of relationships that existed but could not be acknowledged, of children who were born but could not bear their parents’ surname. Of families divided by lines of color that society imposed, but that biology ignored. It is the story of a woman who lived her entire life as a secret, who protected a man who never protected her, who loved a father who could never love her publicly, and who finally at 78 years old decided that she deserved to be more than a secret, deserved to
be recognized, deserved her place in history, and claimed it not with anger, not with revenge, but with dignity, with the simple declaration that she was Strom Thmond’s daughter and that the world had a right to know it.
