Lyndon Johnson had his eyes on the presidential campaign and understood the challenge of breaking out of the South to win national support. The Texas senator, the majority leader of the Senate, began moving for civil rights. Thurmond opposed the legislation. Three decades later, the senator said he was fighting for states' rights, not for the continued oppression of blacks. But his raw language on civil rights left little doubt that he was an aggressive segregationist.
Robert Caro, in the third volume of his examination of the life of Lyndon Johnson, "Master of the Senate," writes that Thurmond was on his own in the filibuster.
Even passionate opponents of civil rights such as Georgia Sen. Richard Russell, Caro wrote, compromised on the issue to advance Johnson's presidential ambition.
Thurmond filibustered against the bill and set a Senate record. He talked without interruption for 24 hours, 18 minutes. He stopped after a Senate doctor threatened to pull him off the floor. And his effort was in vain.
He sat down and the Senate passed the bill that Eisenhower signed into law. In his later years, Thurmond repeatedly denied that he was a racist.
The thrust of his fight, he said, was against the domination of the states by the federal government. His Senate speeches, radio addresses and campaign comments back home during the period are largely repetitive, focusing on states' rights. But he was strident and personal in his attack. Thurmond said in that "the enforcement of the recently enacted so-called Civil Rights Act will mean the upheaval of social patterns and customs more than a century old in many communities, both in the South and in other areas of the nation as well.
To force people to change their pattern of living overnight, to require them to forget how they have acted and reacted over the entire span of their lifetime, creates a potentially dangerous situation. He railed against what he described as communist infiltration of the civil rights movement.
Thurmond accused Northern congressmen of hypocrisy, saying the North had created a ruthless but effective ghetto system to segregate the races. Our Southern system, too, has stood and passed the pragmatic test. It works. The Senate rolled over him in , just as it did in Within weeks,Thurmond would become involved in one of the most famous incidents in Senate history, which has endured from its frequent retelling.
President Johnson had nominated former Florida Gov. Thurmond opposed him. In a July statement, Thurmond said Collins would offer advice on how integration could be best achieved, "not whether it should be pushed or not. He said Collins was one of the "turncoats" who had previously supported segregation and changed their position.
Collins' nomination had to clear a committee vote, and Thurmond attempted to block it by preventing a quorum. He was in the hall outside the hearing room when Texas Sen. Ralph Yarborough tried to enter. Thurmond said years later that Yarborough ordered him inside.
Thurmond said he told the Texas Democrat, "If you're man enough, do it. Lying on the floor, he said, they worked out a plan. If Thurmond lost, Yarborough could vote. If Thurmond won, he couldn't. He was far from embarrassed over it. But he hadn't taken exercise like I had. He wasn't tough and hard. His disenchantment with the Democratic Party was complete.
Thurmond bolted from the party in , throwing his support to Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater in his campaign to defeat Johnson. He went to work building the party in South Carolina. The importance of the switch became clear in when Thurmond aligned himself with Richard Nixon and held Southern delegates for Nixon against a challenge by Alabama Gov. George Wallace. Thurmond had become a national political force.
Fowler said Thurmond delivered several Southern states to Nixon. Edgar, the historian, said Thurmond's break to the Republicans in and his success in "changed the course of American history" in building the Republican Party in the South.
His work for Nixon "gave him an inside track that no other Southern senator had. Thurmond's moves to keep Wallace bottled up and promote Nixon in the South signaled an important political shift.
The last move away from open racial politicking, however, would come after the South Carolina race for governor between Republican U. Albert Watson and Democratic Lt. John West. Watson ran against busing, and the campaign whipped racist flames across the state. West said Thurmond worked harder for Watson than Watson worked for himself. Watson lost, and Thurmond began charting a new course. He hired a black staff member in , and he began working to change his image as a racist.
He began broadening his legendary work for constituents to include black South Carolinians. Modjeska Simpkins, a longtime advocate for civil rights in South Carolina, told The News before her death that she believed Thurmond had genuinely changed.
She said she asked Thurmond for help, and "he has never refused to help, and he has helped in every case. Leevy Johnson was one of the first blacks elected to the South Carolina General Assembly in the s. He said Thurmond was "not forgiven for the obstacles he put in the path of African-Americans to exercise the rights and privileges taken for granted by others.
Another black political pioneer, state Sen. Kay Patterson, said Thurmond's early record on race is indefensible. But Patterson said he believes Thurmond had "a change of heart on the road to Damascus, like Paul.
He woke up and saw the light. Thurmond added a new dimension to his image in when he married Nancy Moore, a year-old former Miss South Carolina. The senator was Dent, Thurmond's longtime political aide, said the marriage added to Thurmond's already virile image.
The couple had two sons and two daughters. One of his sons, Strom Jr. The marriage lasted until , when they separated. In his final months, however, she returned to his side to care for him.
Thurmond reached the height of his power in when Ronald Reagan swept into Washington with a Republican wave that captured the Senate. Thurmond was then president pro tem of the Senate and chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He was third in line to the presidency after the vice president and House speaker. He played critical roles in judicial nominations, crime bills and defense issues. The illegitimate son of a Spanish gentleman, Pizarro served under Spanish conquistador Alonso de Ojeda during his expedition to Colombia in and was with On June 26, , U.
During World War I, the first 14, U. The landing site had been kept secret because of the menace of German submarines, but by the time the Americans had lined up to take their first salute on French soil, an It was his second marriage. At the time, Julia was the youngest first lady in history. Tyler had wooed Julia from the time she was 19, but it took a tragedy and a narrow escape President John F.
Kennedy expresses solidarity with democratic German citizens in a speech on June 26, On June 26, , lightning hits a gunpowder factory in the small European country of Luxembourg, killing more than people. Lightning kills approximately 73 people every year in the United States alone, but victims are almost always killed one at a time.
The Luxembourg Margaret Harold is shot and killed while out for a drive with her boyfriend near Annapolis, Maryland. In response to the Soviet blockade of land routes into West Berlin, the United States begins a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city.
For nearly a year, supplies from American planes sustained the over 2 million people in West Berlin. Among the pressing Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Thurmond won 39 electoral votes. Two years later, he attempted to unseat U. Olin D. Johnson but was unsuccessful.
Then, in , South Carolina Sen. Burnet Maybank died unexpectedly, and Thurmond was a popular write-in candidate. He won over 63 percent of the vote. Once in the Senate, he became an outspoken segregationist. Board of Education decision. His record-setting filibuster occurred in when he spoke against a civil rights bill. Thurmond continued to be a voice of opposition to civil rights legislation through the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
Once he sided with the Republicans, he was instrumental in Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" to obtain the support of white voters. As a Republican senator, Thurmond served consecutive terms from through During this long service, he gradually altered his segregationist views.
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