James strom thurmond biography

Biography

James Strom Thurmond served as a city and county attorney before being elected to the South Carolina state senate in 1932. Following military duty in the Pacific and European theaters during World War II, where he participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and earned a Purple Heart, Thurmond served as governor of South Carolina from 1947 to 1951. He ran as the States’ Rights Democratic (also known as Dixiecrat) candidate for president in 1948, calling for continued racial segregation and opposing federal civil rights laws. In 1954 Thurmond won election to the Senate as a write-in candidate, but he pledged to resign in 1956 to allow for a full election process. Carrying out that pledge, Thurmond was again elected in 1956. He took the oath of office again on November 7, 1956, and continued to serve until his retirement on January 3, 2003. In 1956 Thurmond joined 18 other southern senators in signing the Southern Manifesto, a statement that called for resistance to desegregation in public education in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decisions. In September of 1964, Thurmond joined the Republican Party. He chaired the Judiciary and Armed Services Committees and was elected president pro tempore. He turned 100 years old in 2002, the only senator to reach that milestone while still in office. He also holds the Senate's record for the longest individual speech, his filibuster against the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which lasted for 24 hours and 18 minutes.

All Featured Biographies

About

JAMES STROM THURMOND was born in Edgefield, South Carolina. After graduating from Clemson College, he was a high school teacher for six years and then served as Edgefield County’s Superintendent of Education for four years. While working in the education field, he studied law and was admitted to the South Carolina Bar in 1930. He was an Edgefield City and County Attorney from 1930 to 1938, a member of the South Carolina Senate from 1933 to 1938, and a circuit court judge from 1938 to 1946. With a leave of absence from the court, he served in the U.S. Army in both Europe and the Pacific during World War II, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and becoming a major general in the U.S. Army Reserve. He won election as governor of South Carolina soon after the war ended. During his gubernatorial administration, the probation, prison, and parole systems were reorganized and state assistance for health and education increased. In addition, the courts ruled that blacks could participate in Democratic Party primary elections and a federal lawsuit was filed to declare school segregation unconstitutional. While governor, Thurmond made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. presidency as the States Rights candidate and an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination to a U.S. Senate seat. After leaving the state house, he practiced law and was President of the Aiken Federal Savings and Loan Association. In 1954 he won election to the U.S. Senate as a write-in candidate. However, due to a promise he had made to the voters when he was elected, he resigned as of April, 1956 to place the position I a primary. He went on to win the primary and general election and resumed his senatorial duties. He was reelected to seven more Senate terms and because of both age and tenure held the distinction of being the oldest person ever to serve in the U.S. Senate. Thurmond died at the age of one hundred.

Source

Sobel, Robert, and John Raimo, eds. Biographical Directory of the Gover

American politician

James Strom Thurmond Jr. (born October 18, 1972) is a former United States Attorney for the District of South Carolina and 2nd Circuit Solicitor. He is one of four children born to long-serving United States SenatorStrom Thurmond and Nancy (Moore) Thurmond. His younger brother, Paul, is a former member of the South Carolina Senate. Thurmond graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1995 and University of South Carolina School of Law in 1998. He is the oldest currently living child of Strom Thurmond following the deaths of his older sister Nancy in 1993 and his half-sister Essie in 2013.

Career

Thurmond was recommended for the position of United States attorney in South Carolina by his father, who was the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel that reviewed such appointments. Senator Thurmond claimed his son was "uniquely qualified". At the time, Thurmond Jr. was 28 years old and had been a practicing lawyer for fewer than three years, whereas the average age of the 93 U.S. attorneys was 50, and their average length of legal experience was 22 years. However, the nomination was not contentious, as it was also backed by South Carolina Democrats, including the then-junior U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings. Thurmond served as assistant solicitor for the solicitor's office of the Second Judicial Circuit of South Carolina (1999–2001), as U.S. attorney (2001–2005) and solicitor for the Second Judicial Circuit of South Carolina (2009–2020).

In January 2021, he began private law practice.

References