Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond (ISBN 0060761423)

A FASCINATING LOOK AT ANOTHER ERA:
I wasn't sure I wanted to read this book. Was it just another "tell all" book by someone capitalizing on a scandal? But I was curious about this "secret" Black daughter of the notorious Southern Senator, so I opened the book. I'm glad I did because reading it took me back to another time, another era, another mind-set where a man could love a Black woman he had to keep hidden and care about the daughter they made together, care enough to see her regularly and to generously provide for her needs. Yet father and daughter never shared a meal together. How did Essie Mae Washington-Williams survive such a life and keep Strom Thurmond's secret her whole life, until the Senator finally died at age 100 and she was an old woman? She did it because, despite everything, she loved him and respected him. He was her father. I found her stories of the South in the late 1930s and 1940s a revelation, as she related the reality of segregation and her father's firm and apparently sincerely-held belief that "separate but equal" was the right way for Black and White to relate to each other. It's an amazing story: Growing up in Coatesville Pennsylvania, thinking her aunt was her mother, meeting her real mother (a beautiful woman, she tells us), taking a trip back to her mother's roots in South Carolina, and meeting her father for the first time, as a shy teen-ager. Her shyness with her father kept her from challenging him on his public statements, but eventually that timidity broke down as Essie Mae grew to adulthood, got married, and raised a family. Finally she could tell him that black people hated him and considered him their enemy. But by then he had moved away from the "Dixiecrat" creed that had led him to challenge Harry Truman in 1948 in a presidential election in which he carried four Southern states. He insisted it was not about segregation, but about states' rights. Woven into her story are all the political and cultural events of the 1950s, the 1960s and beyond. We read about having to sit in the balcony at movie theaters, attending the all-black college in South Carolina, riding in the back of the bus (and once, when she was pregnant, refusing to give up her seat, just like Rosa Parks), her cross-country trip with children in the early 50s when there were few motels or even gas stations that would serve "coloreds." We marvel as we wonder why she kept his secret, why she didn't tell the world she was Strom Thurmond's daughter? Was it the money he generously gave her each time they saw one another? Was this "hush money," as her husband Julius would later say? She insists her father never told her to keep quiet, but she wanted to have a father and in her own way was proud of being the daughter of such a powerful and intelligent man. Could she risk losing what little of him he gave her? How strange that Strom Thurmond thought the world would think less of him if they knew of his secret daughter! How could he care for Essie Mae's mother, but not want the world to know? How could people have had such values? Essie Mae tells us of the Confederate flags that flew everywhere in South Carolina, the statues to Civil War heroes who fought for the Confederacy, the disdain for the federal government, and the painful aftermath of the Civil War that continued to simmer. It was a different time, and Strom Thurmond was a complicated man. If his own daughter, who he refused to acknowledge in public, could defend him (as she most certainly does in this book), then maybe we all need to consider that nothing is as simple as it seems.

Fascinating in many ways.:
**MILD SPOILERS** Like many, I was rather disgusted at the posthumous revelation of notorious racist Strom Thurmond's illegitimate daughter. Like many I doubted that in Jim Crow South of the 20's & 30's that an underage African American girl financially dependent on the family could actually have a relationship of equals. Like many I assumed there was probably some coercion (finanical if not physical force). I also assumed that he paid the daughter to keep his hypocrisy quiet. The book taught me not to make assumptions, that the truth is more complex. And the truth was almost sadder and more amazing than my preconceptions. To read that her mother loved Strom hopelessly. To know that she herself felt obligated to keep quiet. I was blown away. It's also just an interesting story of growing up black in the 30's, 40's and 50's in the North (Pennsylvania and NYC) where there was more 'freedom'. And her time (and reasons for returning) in South Carolina is also compelling reading. The descriptions of meetings with her father are fascinating. Her descriptions of her father's views of himself are astounding (he honestly did not think he was racist, he claimed he was tring to "help" the blacks (so long as they kept secret). It's these brief glimpses we get into Strom Thurmon'd personal life and views (mediated through his daughter) that kept me glued to the book in amazement. I could really empathize with what this woman went through. And I applaud her for finally coming foward and sharing her story with others. I highly recommend this!

Dear Senator:
It provided a provocative insight into the lives and times before the civil rights movement through the eyes of a publically unrecognized daughter of a prominent man. It also provided a refreshing new slant on their relationship. Although I had held the "racist" senator in much contempt at the time, after reading this book, I found my feelings for him somewhat mitigated and softened.

Dear Essie Mae:
Can you really love and respect a person whose ethics and moral principles you abhor? Well, after reading "Dear Senator," I believe Essie Mae, did. This was quite a revealing read about the relationship between Essie Mae and her father, Strom Thurmond. Imagine for 16 years living with the people who you think are your parents, then finding out that the woman you think is your mother really isn't your birth mother and that your birth father is really Strom Thurmond. So, what do you do? Do you run out and tell the world that this man who is a political god in the state of South Carolina is your father or do you keep the secret for decades - only revealing it after the man dies? Do you continue to long to be accepted by your father and your father's family or just accept that "it is what it is?" Do you justify keeping your father's secret as a sign of respect for him? Do you continue to accept his "child support" payments and convince yourself that it's his way of showing that he cares? Do you keep the secret of your parentage from your husband and children until "the time is right to tell them?" Oh, such are the dilemmas for Ms. Washington-Williams. Her journey is one that makes for a noteworthy read as she moves through life carrying this remarkable secret that, if told, could have ruined the political career of a man who made his mark as a staunch opponent of Black civil rights. I'm glad Ms. Washington-Williams was finally able to have this burden lifted. 3.5 Stars - the .5 for the mention of my alma mater, NCA & T!

DEAR SENATOR:
MOST INTERESTING READING. READ IT OVER ONE WEEKEND. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. STROM THRUMOND COULD'VE PLAYED HARDBALL AND THREATENED HER MOTHER, BUT INSTEAD FINANICIALLY SUPPORTED HER THROUGH THE YEARS AND PAID FOR HER COLLEGE EDUCATION. Remember, segregation was well alive down South in those days.