Celtic, have to agree with you, Thurmond obviously loved his daughter yet his career made it impossible to publicly acknowledge her. His views about race are discredited yet in the South it sounds like they were widely held. I personally feel if his views about separate schools for races would have led into extreme violence in the long run. Yet the thought of my children being in a school of majority blacks or Hispanics would make me uncomfortable as whites in those schools are targets for the majority. Nor do I like the thought of busing my kids across the city to full fill a quota.

He could not have loved her - he worked against her civil rights. I think that her book describes a more romantic view of their relationship - probably the one she wanted. Quite possibly one that he invented to alleviate his own guilt.

He spent years making everything from education & voting, drinking water, to eating and pee-ing hard for her and all the people she loved.

Not sure I would call that caring or love.

Look at Dick Cheney for a modern example. He tolerates his gay daughter, was "delighted" for her marriage to her longtime partner, but still refused to go to her wedding. His own daughter!

ZeivahFly... One of the best comments I have ever read on this subject!

its real simple.. do you not know the REALS of this nation's slavery and what really happened to the slave girls brought and sold..ans how there master held over their heads, there children and always threaten them I will sell your children if you don't dothis and that..it was evil for PROFIT..thant this nation can never deny..EVER.. the racist senator didn't love his gaughter's mother, she was the maid in the house he was raised in.. she did what she was told.. she was othing other than his bed sex ..chances was she was raped.. white males of the south had their way with afriamerican females and it was their word up against the black female. and the authorities always sided with the white male rapist.. making the black female out to be a whore.. even through she often was beaten up and bruised badly and raped..

Celtic

The last line in the article

In his lifetime, Thurmond said he was not racist but opposed what he saw as excessive federal intervention.

probably explains a lot more than you know especially since .

I found this statement curious

which she struggled to reconcile with his opposition to civil rights and his defense of racial segregation.

Especially when she had said in an interview after Thurmond died that she kind of understood, but not always. Thurmond was never a member of the KKK like Robert Byrd.

The Republicans had for years promoted equal rights legislation and passed some clear back to gaining the majorities in 1861 clear until today. What they have never supported is trying to do is "even" the score. What evening the score should mean is that those who offended pay for their actions, but the reality is that the judgement also penalizes those who have not done anything wrong.

The democrats promoted affirmative action, which the reality is that it would promote people who were less qualified, just because of Race or gender. The reality is that it is no different than a white person denying a black person a position that they were qualified for in favor of someone who was less qualified and white.

If affirmative action was actually, you must interview at least one minority for the position AKA also know as the NFL "Rooney Rule", then there is no reason for opposition.

Now put yourself in a person who is disadvantaged or thinks they are disadvantaged. Who are you going to vote for? The candidate who says you will get the job regardless of your qualifications, or the one that simply says, you cannot be discrimminated against.

Today's voters are more about protecting what they have been promised to get, rather than whether we can really afford to give what has been promised, that we really can't afford to pay for.

Racists always justify.

"I don't want to bus my kids across town to fill a quota."

Shows exactly how shallow you are. Because you think it is some quota, instead of looking at it as an opportunity for your kids.

Yeah square dude, you may not go out there and kill minorities over it. But you are certainly a racist.

This is exactly why Affirmative Action is needed...you know that totally 'flawed' policy. Because while people SAY they should only be judged by their accomplishments, WHAT THEY DO is judge people on race.

Derrick, If you don't realize that the little bussed in white kids would INSTANTLY become a target then arguing with you is pointless. Sticking white kids in crappy schools or moving a couple of token black kids to the 'burbs doesn't fix the crappy inner city schools...

And I'm dying to know exactly what "opportunity" it would be?

How bout all the schools not suck?? Isn't that novel? SMH.....

The white kids would become targets? Like the Little Rock Nine? Or, 6 year old Ruby Bridges in New Orleans? Or, James Meredith integrating 'Ole Miss'? Or the countless other little and teenage black students who endured hatred because they wanted an equal opportunity to learn? Why would majority black students target minority white students in a school setting? Because the tables are turned? smh...

'The white kids would become targets'

So FEAR justifies your racism. Right. You know, the whites have always had it SO hard in this country.

Get real. Not everyone is a racist, but it is pretty clear you are too. Go on though, and keep telling me why.

Thurmond was a "segregationist" while Byrd was a "one-time segregationist and opponent of civil rights legislation, he evolved into a liberal hero".... racism at it's best brought to you by MSNBC

UNC - sorry, but I dont feel much sadness for the white kids who've become "targets" at all black schools. mostly, because no one ever feels sorry for the black kids who get the same treatment at all white schools - and whats worse, most white people dont believe black people are treated poorly. It just doesnt happen, and if it does...by golly it most certainly is just an isolated incident.

I grew up in a small town that was predominately white. During my 4 years of high school there was only 1 black family that moved into town and the 2 kids in high school didnt last longer than a semester.

I heard almost daily the kid in my grade being called the N word - taunted, teased, pushed and harrassed. Most of it within earshot of a teacher, who almost always just ignored it.

I attempted to befriend him, but he didnt trust me - and I didn't blame him.

He finally get kicked out of school because he had had enough after a kid in our class called him the N word again...he just hauled off and punched him.

Next day - he and his brother were gone.

I had NEVER seen a white kid get kicked out of school for punching someone, and usually they didnt even get suspensions.

Im only 33 years old - this experience was not that long ago.

So while I wish that black kids were abusing white kids in their schools, part of me just accepts it as the ebb and flow of life - what goes around will have to come back around.

After decades of white people killing, enslaving and abusing black people...and then after decades of "freedom" only to be repeatedly kicked while down, treated inferior, unallowed to do the same things as white people...and then only a few short decades of "true" equality in the eyes of the law (which I would not say thats a factual statement in the least)...

white people are all of a sudden crying foul the minute black people treat white people, the way white people have ALWAYS treated black people?

Maybe this is what equality means - white people need to get a dose of their own medicine before they are finally willing to admit just how evil - collectively - we have been.

Jessica - I agreed with your post up until this statement: "so while I wish that black kids were abusing white kids in their schools..."

I just don't understand how you can wish for ANY kid to be tortured in school? To prove a point that it happened to others first? What does that change?

And, as a matter of fact, I went to a predominantly black/hispanic school, and while I never had a problem, there were white kids who were picked on as the minority. Kids can be horrible to each other, and I don't doubt that it happens in schools where Muslims are the minority, blacks are the minority, asians, jews, etc. We need to push forward thinking and tolerance, not have an all out war to see "how they like it."

Where one sees "complexity", another sees @!$%#faced lies. Obviously, only Strom had the strength of character to engage in an interracial relationship. Anyone else, it would be a disaster. Thank you, Strom, for recognizing this and saving us from our folly. You were the Newt Gingrich of your time.

Derek (1.7) - The government takes racist actions of busing a race across town to demonstrate it is not racist. But then a person prefers not to support the governments' "anti-racist" actions is now deemed a racist?

When a person buys a home is a particular part of town may have been because of the school system and not because of the racial makeup. But when a government tries to level the field by forcing people to support their "racial" agenda and the people rebel the agenda doesn't make the people racists.

I'm confused. She was born of a black mother and white father and NBCNews labels her biracial. obama is born of a black father and white mother and he is labeled black. George Zimmerman was born of a white father and hispanic mother but NBCNews labels him white.

NBCNews can't standardize their labels of mixed race people because it would jack up their racial agenda.

I have not read the book that Ms. Washington-Williams wrote so I do not claim to have all the facts or what she knew to be facts about the "relationship" between her mother and Strom Thurmond so I am not convinced that this union was indeed a "relationship" rather than a rape or repeated rapes. When this all originally came to light, Ms. Washington-Williams stated that her mother never liked to talk much about the circumstances that led to her being pregnant by Strom Thurmond. This was 1925 people and Ms. Washington-Williams's mother was still in her teens and the Thurmonds were people of some influence even back then. To call this a relationship infers a consensual act. I hardly think it was that. He had influence and, because this was in the 1920's, just by being white, he also had power of a sort. The black teen had nothing but a job, such as it was. Strom Thurmond was a racist! The fact that he wrote nice letters to his daughter was probably only done so to placate her from coming out with her secret at a time when she could have ruined his skanky self politically. She went along in some misplaced, misguided attempt to have some sort of tie to him, her father. I feel sorry for her that she had his blood running through her. Thurmond was the worst sort of human being. Thank goodness he is where he cannot harm anyone else. A pig has better sense than that old fool did.

The slave owner owned people, namely his slaves. The U.S being one of the last Western countries to abolish slavery. Slavery, most likely, would have been abolished entirely by 1880 without the Civil War. But, the Republican Party of Lincoln, "hot-to-trot" for expansion and power, had to have their war by provoking the South to "fire" the first shot.

America is very good at forcing the OTHER country to fire first so that was can be justified.

Slavery, most likely, would have been abolished entirely by 1880 without the Civil War.

I don't see how you came to this conclusion. The slave owners wanted the west to be opened for more slave holdings, and to have the north assist them in keeping their slaves, notably with the Dred Scott decision, which was written by a slave-owning Supreme Court justice.

Blueunicorn:

You don't understand it, because you're an enlightened, intelligent, 21st century person.

Let me put it in a different context for you.

You own a lawn mower. You would like a hedge clipper, and so you sell your lawn mower to your neighbor so you can go to Sears to buy a hedge clipper. You wouldn't think twice about selling a tool, a piece of property.

Or, say you had a horse. You love that horse, but you really need a cow. So you trade your horse to your neighbor for his spare cow. You wouldn't think twice about trading that horse for that cow, since you really need a cow to provide milk for your family.

Slave owners didn't think twice about selling or trading a piece of property, because they did not view their human tools as human, merely as property. They were goods, not people.

That mindset in the 19th century is what kept the entire plantation system going for so long. It wasn't until we as a culture began seeing the human costs, and began realizing (and believing) that those pieces of human property were in fact human first, before they were property, that we began to move towards a more enlightened state.

It was much easier to deny them their humanity because they didn't look like us. It is still done quite a bit today, to a certain extent. It is a flaw of human nature that we need to seek out a difference in order to feel better about ourselves.

ElkMeadow: You've obviously got a skewed understanding of the socio-political history of the 19th century. Mr. Boyd is correct when he states that slavery would almost certainly have been abolished by 1880 in the absence of the Civil War. I have seen some European academic literature that suggests 1875 as a possible date for abolition.

Please go back and study a bit more, as there are a lot of economic and socio-political factors at play in this particular time period. :)

Michael,

But, the Republican Party of Lincoln, "hot-to-trot" for expansion and power, had to have their war by provoking the South to "fire" the first shot.

This is revisionist history. Lincoln and the Republicans ran on #1 preserving the Union and #2 Abolishing Slavery. That is no power grabbing. The problem for Lincoln was that states were already seceeding before he was sworn in. He had won election hoping to keep the Union whole, but the south saw the end of slavery and was not willing to give up without a fight.

Sumter was a federal military property, not a state property. While in other states, federal properties were seized without a shot. Most of those facilites were not going to be defended by the north because there was not enough military to do that, especially with the number of southern desertions from the Union Armies.

Fort Sumter was a defendable facility and the south wanted no part of a federal presence bottling up the harbor.

The south was the aggressors, because Confederate President Jefferson Davis even told Lincoln not to send supplies. It was the south that wanted to take the facility by force if necessary.

Michael - I wont deny that we are good at saying the other side forced us into war.

I don't think the South forced the north into Civil War - you're the one saying the north forced the south.

Oh the irony...

The U.S being one of the last Western countries to abolish slavery.

Hmm...I supposed it depends on how one defines "Western".

1869: Portugal (African colonies)
1882: Ottoman Empire
1886: Cuba
1888: Brazil

But then there is also that whole problem of serfdom, which also stuck around later than many would care to consider.

1871: Georgia
1880: Bulgaria
1894: Iceland
1918: Bosnia/Herzegovina

...and at 1861, it isn't like Russia beat the US out by all that much.

Michael - none of us, not a single one, get through life on our own.

Delusional sociopaths are the only ones who believe that to be true.

I would be willing to bet that early on in her life, Mr Thurmonds guilt helped this woman "do quite well" more so than other families like hers had done at the time.

Kudos to her for making the most of his guilt and assistance.

Not only was he a liar but he was a rapist. A 22 year old man with a 16 year old girl is legally rape in these times. Teachers have been going to jail for it. For some reason, this guy is hailed as a hero. I feel really sorry for the mother in this situation and even more sorry for the daughter. I wouldn't doubt that he threatened or intimidated the mother. None of this is brought up. He gave the daughter hush money and everyone talks about it like its such a delicate mystery. It's not a mystery. The man was a hypocrite, a racist, a rapist and he bribed his daughter to hide others from finding out. His family is just as complicit.

Charlie

A 22 year old man with a 16 year old girl is legally rape in these times.

16 years was the age of consent in much of the south. Girls could get married even at age 15 (14 in some states) with the approval of their parents.

This off the mark comment taints the rest of what you wrote.

DB - I think it's fairly safe to assume that the woman he slept with had little to no choice in the matter.

That is just as accurate for the times as well.

Rape is still rape...even if flowered with the asterics of "but you have to remember historically..."

warren said:

Segregation is racist but Separatist is not.

Really!!?, how do you differentiate the two?

If I remember correctly, the girl was about 15 and Strom in his 20s. The girl and her mother were servants in the Thurmond home and it was the 1920s. This hardly sounds like "romance" and sounds more like the old plantation owner privilege of free access to "his" Negroes, as in, rape, or something very much like it.

Ilene, you're exactly right. It is rape.

Imagine today, if a twenty-something had sex (let's drop race for a moment) with a 15 year old girl. Let's put it in a closer context. Imagine a male 25 year old teacher had sex and a child with a 15 year old student.

We'd all be calling for his castration and incarceration.

The Thurmonds were wealthy, priviliged, and in their own mind, above the law. That 15 year old maid could have no more said "no" than she could have flown.

It was rape, pure and simple, aided by a culture of arrogance borne of wealth, and an attitude of superiority.

Much of this country is still like that.

Missy, I don't understand how you can say nobody is that much of a racist. This is just one more example of a man's duplicity when he can get away with it. The fact that Essie Mae's mother was a servant in their home, simply made her a soft target.

I read her book,"Dear Senator". She was a woman of incomparable grace in a very difficult situation.

One scenario she mentioned in the book was when she visited the Senator, he cautioned her to exercise regularly--he felt she was a bit beefy. He was known to exercise regularly. Staged photos of him with his white children were included. Of course, they were perfectly proportioned... What an arrogant man. With a Southern charm.

Imagine today, if a twenty-something had sex (let's drop race for a moment) with a 15 year old girl. Let's put it in a closer context. Imagine a male 25 year old teacher had sex and a child with a 15 year old student.

We'd all be calling for his castration and incarceration.

And yet Ted Nugent is still alive and not in jail... sigh.

This is what I met by that remark, "nobody is that much of a racist". I've heard that white men of privilege such as Strom Thurmond or Thomas Jefferson, would never have sex with a Black Woman because they were "too racist". I kid you not, there are still people out there who believe that. Or if they did get involved with these women, as did happen in my family, the women were these sexy, fatals who seduced these virtuous Christian men. Maybe these men believed that Blacks were inferior and I do believe they did but they weren't so inferior, especially the women, that they had no problem exploiting the women, like Essie's mom, sexually. Yes, it was rape and not only should we call it for what it is, we should also acknowledge that nobody was so racist that they wouldn't sexually abuse women of color.

Missy, Your point is not made nor does it have any value. A bigot who justifies second or third class status for an entire group of people based on skin color and hides behind "states rights" is a coward and a racist. Just because he took advantage of a young girl who was "less than" himself (in his mind) does not make him less racist. He didn't have the backbone to admit that he had fathered a mixed race daughter. He refused to pubicly acknowledge her existence, his family likewise perpetrated the lie while he was alive. He had to maintain his segregationist facade so that none of his constituents would know that he was simply another lying poitician who did whatever he could to keep political power. He did nothing to improve race relations or admit that he had been dead wrong throughout his life. He could have done so much to make a difference; he chose to remain an idiot until he died...

You missed my point completely. As I said, many people have insisted that some of these men like Strom Thurmond, were "too racist and therefore they'd never engage in activity, raping young women of color. In other words, what they did never happened. Mrs. Williams story more than proves this was not the case.

Peace.

You somehow find it redeeming that racist men would take advantage of Black teens and youg Black women? You think it makes them less racist? Wow....

Missy - with all due respect, raping someone of color doesnt make you LESS of a racist.

I honestly cant believe that you somehow believe it to be true, and you're really trying to argue it.

Let me put this in a context you'll grasp:

Would I be the ultimate racist if i refused to beat, murder, or straight up disfigure a black person because I hate them so much I wont even let my pristine white skin touch theirs, not even in an attempt to do bodily harm and damage...like you know, rape is?

Real racists wont even be in the same zip code as a black person, thats how racist they are.

sorry missy - MASSIVE LOGIC FAIL.

rape isnt about sex or love, it's about power.

@misssy, did your grandfather consider himself to be a christian? I thought so....

Some Democrats love those little underage black girls in the Caribbean island nations. It's pretty lame when people blame Republicans for their own failures in life. I'm an independent so I can blame both parties when I'm down and out.

Zheng, you can prove your wild assertion, with documented evidence, can't you?

If you can't, it sounds just like you've made it up just to slam Democrats.

Just like a typical RepubliCON.

The only independent thought you've ever had was which pair of underwear you were going to put on.

kinda like how Sen byrd kept getting relected and he was a card carrying member of the kkk.love those double standards,

Here we go. Wondered how many comments I'd have to read before we got to the name-calling and the Dem vs Repub arguements.

Tess, you were doing ok there for awhile. But now your stuff is back in the gutter.

If they got an erection they had to use it color did not matter only his erection.

And now we have elections where nothing matters but the color...

If the south is all that why are any Africans still in the south...one would think by now even the most illiterate Africans could have found their way into the north...

After the Civil War, they had nowhere to go. The North didn't want them either.

Call him whatever you want...it's your 2 cents...

Do you live in Columbia? do you live in South Carolina? if not, then do a little research before you write. "I lived in the South" big damn deal.

My mother is from Manning SC, she still has nothing nice to say about South Carolina. I guess growing up in the "Apartheid South" is something that she can never forgive or forget. At least she has expressed her desire to be buried in the "family plot" in Sumnter S.C.

Well you know we cannot change history, it is what it is. I know that much has changed for the better in SC, of course that is little comfort to what your Mother went through-for that I am sorry. I grew up in Summerville, just outside Charleston so I know this part of SC well Regards---

Charleston's a beautiful city.

The further west you drive from there, the scarier things get.

Dont be so one sided. you forgot the dixiecrats who ran the south from the civil war until the 1980's. Or have you forgotten wallaces stand in front of the door routine?

the liberals did a much better job of shafting the blacks than the republicans every did keeping the blacks on the "other side of the tracks" and their liberal buddies up north did nothing about it until Kennedy in the 60's.

and now in the glorious 21st century year of 2013, with the liberal intervention in the 60's for blacks of food stamps, welfare, and government subsidied housing, the blacks still live on the other side of the tracks, and nobody notices.

I am Shoshone Indian and my people still live on a reservation, put their by your government, after their lands were taken for the great white expansion. If the way the blacks were treated would be considered poor, the indians were treated worse. Both cultures were destroyed.

Sorry we got a long way to go.

And as far as strom thruman:

The record for the longest filibuster goes to U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, according to U.S. Senate records.

Thurmond began speaking at 8:54 p.m. on Aug. 28 and continued until 9:12 p.m. the following evening, reciting the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, President George Washington's farewell address and other historical documents along the way.

Thurmond was not the only lawmaker to filibuster on the issue, however. According to Senate records, teams of senators consumed 57 days filibustering between March 26 and June 19, the day the Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed.

Steve, though she may not have revealed it officially before he died, many of us in that area of the State knew it quite well.

Sen Byrd left the Klan many years ago. Sen Thurmond maintained his lies until he died. While you may not consider WV to be a Southern state, it is still below the Mason Dixon line...

But consider, when Virginia seceded from the Union, the territory now known as West Virginia seceded from Virginia, remaining with the Union.

NB - so is Baltimore WV is NOT a Southern state.

Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

and you've proved the Robinson Dictum:

If the lessons of history teach us any one thing, it is that no one learns the lessons that history teaches.

I am sorry you experienced that, I wonder which Southern State you live in? Most Southerns are by nature gracious. I think what we resent is Northerners flocking en mass to the South, you do not see the reverse. Once here we are told how: much better the North, Northeast is, how much smarter you are, how much more culturally advanced you are, how we do things in _____and on and on. It gets tiresome . That is when the question comes up, "if the North is so much better, why are you here"

I doubt anyone from the South had any idea where you came from before you 'even opened my mouth to speak' - unless they saw the license plate on your car.

And you go calling me or anyone I know a buffoon and I'll make sure you go back to 'where you came from'.

Yankees come south to spread culture, intelligence, and at least the idea of social justice. And maybe to improve the gene pool, so that fewer potential Strom Thurmonds never get born.

Did I mention the mild climate?

Well aren't we luckily to be blessed by your arrogance and self righteous pious nature. I do believe Martin Luther Kings once said of Chicago when he marched through there that people in Mississippi could learn a lot about Racism from the people in Chicago. I suggest you move to Florida if you insist on living in the South. Lastly we sure as hell do not need anything from your gene pool.!

Seems Southerners resent anything that changes what they are used to. Having lived in NY my entire life I was fortunately exposed to diversity in all things and learned to appreciate them. It is stunted and ignorant to resist the value of change or the offer of new ideas or cultures. It only serves to deprive an individual from a greater life experience. To resent and mock newcomers is pathetic. Hate to say it but "where I come from" we welcome those of different races and cultural backgrounds. We don't imitate they way others speak anymore than we joke about the differing accents of "our own" in good nature. I've found my experience of adjusting to my new home insulting and depressing and it's been nearly ten years. I've embraced my new surroundings and the people who live here. The experience has not been reciprocal and all I can say is "oh well, your loss". Frankly, it is equally ignorant to conclude that we all think the "North is better" so "why are you here?" People relocate for many reasons: health concerns, financial issues, a want to experience a different geology or social culture or maybe we just can't shovel snow anymore. It's time we all realize the USA is a big country, full of many types of offerings and all kinds of people that have the right to move where they want and live peacefully without harassment. In my experience alot of things are better in the North and I miss those things, be it the variety of ethnic foods or fashions or the ambitious work ethic or the variety of cultural activities or the good ol' NY sarcasm to the greater tolerance of social diversity. For those who have not experienced these things - be not so quick to judge. I love the spot I live in for it's natural beauty and climate. I enjoy the local foods and customs. I do not appreciate the ignorant and unwelcoming, mocking attitude of many I've encountered socially. In 50 years I did not experience that kind of bashing in my hometown. I empathize with those of all cultures who have experienced that kind of prejudice.

Well Sir, I suppose we will just agree to disagree. I don't not resent change, sometimes it is good. I enjoy diversity, I am luckily my job allows me to travel around the world it is fascinating. My point is people for the most part are welcome in the South, what we resent is the superior attitude of SOME Northerners who move here. I love the south and especially my South Carolina, the history the culture ,the land, and the people, (all of them), all my kids were born and raised here. My family line goes back 220 years. Is it perfect? No, there are most certainly dark parts of our history But it is ours, not yours. Things have changed dramatically in the South over the course of the last 50 years for the better.

I appreciate your comments and your position, and you are clearly not of the type of person to whom I've referred. Just as all Northerners are not the same. Some of us moved away from them for the same reasons they are not liked by Southerners. My point is that we are not all the same and should not all be tried for the "crimes" of others as so many of us in the UNITED States of America continue to do. Our country's history belongs to everyone of us and it is our responsibility to take all steps that we can not to repeat the bad parts so our future as a country can be a brighter one. I'm not singling anyone out, just sayin' that we have too many people against one another for no good reason. It's as bad as the stupid comments I had to put up with in the 60s as a German American being called a "Nazi" despite the fact that not all Germans were Nazi's and my Dad was a soldier in WWII fighting for the USA. Guess I was hoping by this time in history we'd all be getting along better with each other. Thanks for your insightful words, I appreciate your opinion. PS I'm not a man. :o)

Sorry for the gender mistake- have a great day, ya;ll come back now here!-

I grew up in the still-very-segregated South and don't find the "hipocracy" all that odd -- because whenever you try to make yourself believe in something that simply isn't true (for example, that blacks are somehow not "people" like whites), to maintain that belief you are forced to accept things that are irrational and contradictory, illogical. The civil rights movement truly did as much to free whites - from this self-imposed twisting of the mind and heart -- as it did to free blacks. That is truly no exaggeration -- we knew we were wrong. And when you do harsh and ugly things to people because of something that you know is wrong and untrue, that's soul-killing.

--- Also, although I disagreed with each and every one of his public opinions, I have to give Sen. Thurmond credit not only for letting this woman know who her father was and that, in his way, he cared for her but also for raising his legitimate children to have bigger hearts and more honesty than he was able to display. When Mrs. Washington-Williams' story became public, his children looked into it, accepted it, dealt with her courteously, and had her name added to a statue of Sen. Thurmond on which all of his other children's names were listed. That would have been impossible, unthinkable, in the South in which I was raised.

Puhleeeeease! Seriously? "People in the South don't like anybody..." You can't make a categorical statement like that and have any credibility.

Most of us don't have a problem with Northerners. There is a culture in the South and there is another culture in the North. What many Southerners resent is a person who comes into our area and thinks he/she is God's gift to us and that he/she was sent to help us see the error of our ways. I daresay that any Northerner would resent it if a Southerner did likewise. And rightly so.

Can you say that all Northerners or New Yorkers fit any stereotype? No, of course not. Because if they do, then maybe we Southerners should think of you and other Northerners as someone like Snooki (yes, I know she's from New Jersey), Donald Trump, the late Ed Koch, or any of the tacky women on that Real Housewives show. Likewise, not all Southerners are reminiscent of Strom Thurmond, Devil Anse Hatfield or Honey Boo Boo.

I've traveled. My dad was in the Air Force. I was born in Sumter, SC and I've lived in New Hampshire, England, North Carolina, Tennessee and South Carolina. I've been to NYC, upstate NY, and New Jersey. My experience in NYC was that no one said "hello" on the street or even smiled at other people. New Jersey was the same. But I would never say "Northerners don't like anybody...especially if you're from the South". Upstate NY was different; people were, IN GENERAL, friendly. Here in the South, nearly everyone says "hey". I can drive down the road in a neighborhood (not necessarily my own) and people I don't even know will wave at me.

Don't make judgements about a group of people based on your experience of a few. And try to remember that you'll be judged by your actions. If people didn't like you...it probably didn't have anything to do with your being from the North.

An the slaves provided by their brothers in Africa!

Yet, it was a northern state ( Rhode Island ) that was the first to rid it's self of slavery. Followed by...

Vermont in 1777

Pennsylvania in 1780

Massachusetts in 1781

New Hampshire in 1783

Connecticut in 1784

New York in 1799

New Jersey in 1804

All of these are NORTHERN states. There is no denying that the north had slaves but they became a bit more en-lighted over time.

Sometimes it is not how you start that matters, sometimes it's how you finish. You can call northerners what you like,but for various reasons ( some not so altruistic ) they where the first to do away with such crap.

QE137 -

The "only" reason the northern states abolished slavery first is that with more immigrants coming into the US from Europe it was cheaper to hire an experienced worker than to support an uneducated slave worker...so much for northern enlightenment...

Dee Ten: If you think that is the only reason the north abandoned slavery, you are simply wrong. What you are doing is called rationalization, and we all know what you are trying to rationalize.

Dee Ten

QE137 -

The "only" reason the northern states abolished slavery first is that with more immigrants coming into the US from Europe it was cheaper to hire an experienced worker than to support an uneducated slave worker...so much for northern enlightenment...

I did point out that some of the reasons why the north rid it's self of slavery was not altruistic. I understand that there where other considerations by the leaders of those states besides freedom of all people but there was greater sympathy in the north in general for black people. There where plenty of northern citizens involved in the underground railroad shuttling slaves all the way into Canada.

There where many considerations for the northern states as to why slavery should no longer be legal, it was not just one issue.

Yes, the north had greater immigration, but it also had fewer large farms and plantations. Of the four major crops that the south is known for (tobacco, cotton, sugar cane and rice), only tobacco is/was grown in the north, and on much smaller farms.
Simply put, there was less work that was easily delegated to slaves. Remember that factories weren't that large in 1860. It would be another 20-30 years before the major waves of Italian & Slavic immigration.

That said, it was a northerner from my own state named Eli Whitney whom invented the Cotton Gin, which probably did more to extend slavery's usefulness in the south than anything else.

So... as others have touched on, it's not a question with a single answer.

Dee Ten, yours is at least as racist a comment as I've seen here. By the '20's, African-Americans - when given the chance - could do anything as well as whites, but you insist on trotting out the conventional bigot's wisdom that slavery was an act of Christian charity, as though blacks couldn't survive without the white man's "stewardship".

Patent nonsense.

Well in the 1860s turning loose 4 million Africans that could neither read nor write into a population of 27 million whites was certainly a racist act...why were the northern states not enlightened enough to return these Africans to where they had been sold into slavery by their fellow tribesmen??? Kind of a convenient set of moral standards the northern states had...

Yes Dee, you are a dickhead

Dee Ten, Any attempt at rational conversation with you would be futile. Far more slaves could read and write than you imagine. Far fewer Whites were educated than than you seem to think. This country was still largely agricultural and many white left school early to work on the farm. The lack of formal education does not mean these people were ignorant and lacked life skills. Slaves ahd many skills, like farming, carpentry, blacksmithing and so much more. YYou really think these people worked their entire lives on plantations without learning anything?

Apparently, you never learned anything while you were in school, yet here you are still in your ignorance in 2013...

Hey, Dee Moron - Care to explain how the Black church thrived without formally educated people to run it?

How did so many uneducated Blacks learn to run plantations without formal education?

How were Blacks elected to the US senate from the south during reconstruction if they were so ignorant?

How did slaves conceive of escaping and make it to the North and to Canada without being "educated"?

How did Blacks compose songs and communicate in code if they were so stupid?

How did they devise escape plans without being taught to do so?

They were all so child like and stupid unless they were formally educated by Whites...

How have you existed this far into the 21st century while being so stupid???

I Love General Sherman!

DeeTen: I have white neighbors with southern roots that can't read or write. Good ole boys that still use racism as the glue and social lubricant of their existence. My parents taught me that the worst bigots were those who had to look very hard for someone with less social stature than they had, and then never let them forget it. It is sad to see someone who is 80+ years old and has never faced his own fallibility or meagerness.