Strom Thurmond’s career in American politics was one of extraordinary longevity, controversy, and reinvention. From his beginnings as Governor of South Carolina to his half-century tenure in the United States Senate, he left an indelible—if divisive—mark on 20th-century America.
Early Career and 1948 Presidential Run
Thurmond first came to national attention as Governor of South Carolina, winning the one-party race in a state where African-American voters were disenfranchised under Jim Crow laws. His governorship was marked by an unusual stance for a Southern politician at the time: his opposition to the lynching of Willie Earle in 1947, a case that drew national scrutiny.
The following year, the Democratic Party faced a reckoning over civil rights. At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, a 10-point civil rights programme was adopted, which included the establishment of a Fair Employment Practice Commission and the promise of federal enforcement of voting rights. Angered by this platform, Thurmond and 34 other Southern Democrats walked out of the convention. He would later explain: “On the question of social intermingling of the races, our people draw the line.”
In response, the States’ Rights Democratic Party—better known as the Dixiecrats—nominated Thurmond as their presidential candidate. With ballot access in 13 states, Thurmond carried four in the Deep South: South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, winning 39 Electoral College votes. In Alabama, he secured nearly 80% of the vote while President Harry Truman was not even on the ballot. Although the campaign fell short nationally, it demonstrated the deep fractures within the Democratic coalition.
Interestingly, despite not running in 1960, Thurmond’s name appeared again when a faithless elector in Oklahoma cast his presidential vote for the South Carolinian.
Despite the challenges from Thurmond’s Dixiecrats on the right and former Vice President Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party on the left, Truman ultimately won re-election. Still, the fissures exposed in 1948 marked the beginning of the South’s gradual realignment away from the Democratic Party.
From Governor to Senator
In 1954, when South Carolina Democrats declined to hold a Senate primary, Thurmond mounted an unusual write-in campaign. Against the odds, he won with 63% of the vote, making history as the first U.S. Senator elected by write-in.
During his early Senate years, Thurmond drafted the Southern Manifesto, a document signed by 19 Senators and 82 Representatives opposing the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which mandated school desegregation.
In 1957, Thurmond staged his most infamous protest: the longest solo filibuster in U.S. history. For more than 24 hours, he railed against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, denouncing it as unconstitutional and “a cruel and unusual punishment.” To prepare, he reportedly took steam baths to dehydrate himself, kept cough drops on hand, and even had a bucket nearby should nature call. Despite his marathon speech, the bill passed—the first civil rights legislation in over 80 years.
Party Switch and Civil Rights Opposition
By 1964, Strom Thurmond made a momentous political shift, leaving the Democratic Party to join the Republicans. His switch symbolised and accelerated the South’s partisan transformation. That same year, he vigorously campaigned for Republican nominee Barry Goldwater, who, like Thurmond, opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thurmond called the bill “the worst civil rights package ever presented to Congress” and took part in a 60-day filibuster to try to derail it.
The effect of his switch was seismic. Where Mississippi had once voted 97% for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, it backed Goldwater by 87% in 1964. Thurmond had helped cement the decline of Democratic dominance in the South.
In 1967, he was the only Republican Senator to vote against the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American nominee to the Supreme Court. The following year, he threatened a filibuster to block President Lyndon Johnson’s attempt to elevate Abe Fortas to Chief Justice, giving rise to what became known as the “Thurmond Rule”—an informal precedent of limiting judicial confirmations in election years.
Alliance with Nixon
Though he had been a supporter of the hard-right Goldwater, by 1968 – Strom Thurmond backed Richard Nixon. He played a crucial role in consolidating Southern support for Nixon, persuading some pro-Reagan delegates to support the eventual nominee and working to undermine George Wallace’s third-party campaign. Thurmond feared that Wallace’s segregationist populism would split conservative votes, inadvertently helping Democrat Hubert Humphrey.
Thurmond remained loyal to Nixon throughout his presidency. Some historians speculate that he might have been one of the few Senators willing to back Nixon had impeachment proceedings over Watergate reached the Senate floor.
Shifting Stances in Later Years
Over time, Strom Thurmond’s position on civil rights evolved—if never fully. He became one of the first Southern Senators to hire a Black aide and later supported the renewal of the Voting Rights Act in the 1980s. He also voted in favour of establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday, despite having once smeared civil rights leader Bayard Rustin as both “a Communist and a homosexual.”
Nevertheless, he never issued an outright apology for his segregationist past. Even in his New York Times obituary, he was described as “a foe of integration.”
Beyond Civil Rights
While civil rights defined his public reputation, Thurmond’s Senate career touched many other areas.
He was a staunch anti-communist, vocally opposing regimes in the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. In 1972, he pushed for the deportation of John Lennon over the former Beatle’s anti-Vietnam War activism, writing directly to Attorney General John Mitchell.
Domestically, he supported constitutional amendments to mandate a balanced federal budget and to ban flag burning—though neither proposal succeeded.
Record-Breaking Longevity
Thurmond’s Senate service set records. In 1997, he became the longest-serving Senator in U.S. history. The following year, he cast his 15,000th vote, a milestone few have approached. His 95th and final piece of legislation as a primary sponsor was the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999.
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, his health was visibly failing. Colleagues sometimes had to guide him on how to vote, and in 2001 he collapsed on the Senate floor.
In 2002, he reached a remarkable milestone, becoming the first and only sitting centenarian in congressional history. At the time, he held the honorary role of President pro tempore emeritus, having previously served three stints as President pro tempore. His last major vote helped establish the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of 9/11.
Even in retirement, Thurmond was never far from controversy. In 2002, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott resigned his leadership role after suggesting that if Thurmond’s 1948 presidential campaign had succeeded, “we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years.”
Death and Legacy
Strom Thurmond finally retired from the Senate in January 2003, at the age of 100, ending a 48-year tenure in the chamber. He died later that year, sparking reflections on a life that encapsulated both the resilience and contradictions of Southern politics.
Vice President Dick Cheney eulogised him as a “proud and brave American patriot,” while the official Senate eulogy was delivered by Joe Biden.
Thurmond’s career remains one of the most paradoxical in American history: a man who began as a fervent segregationist, played a role in reshaping the political map of the South, yet later moderated some of his stances without ever fully atoning for his past. His legacy, like the century he lived through, remains fiercely debated.
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