Essie Mae Washington-Williams had a decades-long career as a schoolteacher in Los Angeles, but she'll likely be remembered most as an emblem of the hypocrisy of her father, the late onetime segregationist, U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.
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Thurmond kept Washington-Williams, the daughter he fathered with his family's African-American maid, a secret for more than 70 years. She died Monday at age 87. From the Huffington Post:
Vann Dozier of Leevy's Funeral Home in Columbia said Washington-Williams died Monday. A cause of death wasn't given …
There had been rumors for decades in political circles and the black community that Thurmond had fathered a daughter by a black woman. But Washington-Williams did not come forward and identify Thurmond as her father until after his death at age 100 in 2003.
Washington-Williams spent decades as a school teacher in Los Angeles. Thurmond was South Carolina's governor and for a time was the nation's longest-serving U.S. senator.
Read more at the Huffington Post.
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