COLUMBIA, S.C., Dec. 17 (UPI) -- The bi-racial daughter of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., says she kept silent for decades about being his daughter because she didn't want him harmed.
"I was sensitive about his well-being, his career and his family," Essie Mae Williams said during a Tuesday news conference in Columbia, S.C. "I never wanted to do anything to harm him. But my children deserved to know where they came from."
Williams, 78, said her mother became pregnant by Thurmond when he was 22 and her mother was the Thurmonds' 16-year-old maid.
She said Thurmond, once a staunch segregationist, sent her checks and cards and after becoming senator, he invited her to Washington.
Said Williams: "All of them on his staff knew exactly who I was. I knew him beyond his public image. I certainly never did like the idea that he was a segregationist, but there was nothing I could do about it. That was his life."
Thurmond died at age 100 last June, never publicly acknowledging his daughter.
