Sharpton, Thurmond linked through slavery

NEW YORK, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- U.S. civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton is amused after learning his relatives were once slaves owned by relatives of late Sen. Strom Thurmond,

The New York Daily News said Sharpton was in disbelief when he learned that his great-grandfather's family was once owned by a distant relative of the late South Carolina senator.

"I have always wondered what was the background of my family," Sharpton said. "But nothing -- nothing -- could prepare me for this."

The link was made by genealogists, who used historical documents to prove that Coleman Sharpton, along with a woman and two children thought to be his family, were owned by Julia Thurmond.

The late senator's great-great-grandfather was Julia Thurmond's grandfather.

While Sharpton admitted to being stunned by the news he was linked to a strong proponent of segregation, he nonetheless found the ability to joke about the situation.

"Maybe, I'm the revenge of Coleman," he told the Daily News.

After Thurmond's death in 2003 at the age of 100 it was disclosed the man who ran for president as a "DIxiecrat" in 1948 on a segregation platform, had fathered a daughter, Essie Mae Washington Williams, with his family's black maid when he was 22.