Through a Lens Darkly - on September 4, 1957, when 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford tried to enter Little Rock Central High, she was blocked by the National Guard and surrounded by a screaming mob of 250: "Lynch her! Lynch her!" "No nigger bitch is going to get in our school! Get out of here!" "Go back to where you came from!" Looking for a friendly face, she turned to an old woman, who spat on her. Photos. Dramatic news footage. Ernest Green, another of the Little Rock 9 recalls the first day of school. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Sep 25, 2007 - 48 comments

Genealogists: Thurmond's family owned Sharpton's kin It seems like a poor joke or a REALLY bad idea for a TV movie but apparently it's quite real. Truth sometimes IS stranger than fiction.
posted by orbis23 on Feb 25, 2007 - 52 comments

Woman claims she's Strom Thurmond's mixed-race daughter Everyone's favorite segregationist dixiecrat had an out-of-wedlock, mixed-race daughter that he "provided financial support" to from 1941 on. The mind boggles how, at any moment in the last 60 years, this news could have deep-sixed Strom's political career -- but somehow didn't.
posted by dogmatic on Dec 14, 2003 - 18 comments

eight terms in office, one hundred years on earth. he has been a democrat, he has been a republican, and at one time he was a mere three heartbeats away from sitting the oval office. he is senator strom thurmond, and today is his 111th 100th birthday. pushng shadows of ageism aside for a moment, this begs the question: just how old is too old to remain in office?
posted by grabbingsand on Dec 5, 2002 - 57 comments

Sen. Storm Thurmond poster boy for term limits? Is this more hipocracy on part of we need term-limits Republican? Why doesn't he just resign and spend some time with his family?
posted by Rastafari on May 8, 2001 - 8 comments

Take my wife, please Old soldiers may die but their wives carry on. The mantle is passed.
posted by Postroad on Feb 23, 2001 - 12 comments