There are times when even modern progressives would look to something late South Carolina Governor and Senator Strom Thurmond did and actually agree with.
While governor, Thurmond appointed the first Black person and the first woman to a cabinet position in the late ‘40s. He pressed for the criminal prosecution of a lynch mob. He lengthened the school year and abolished the poll tax in S.C., which kept Black voters from casting a ballot.
But in spite all of this, Thurmond was one of America’s most high-profile and ardent segregationists. Despite helping to liberate the Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp at the end of World War II, he continued to advocate for policies that reinforced white supremacy at home, all in the name of winning votes and “states rights.”
