] After a lifetime of public silence, a 78-year-old Los
] Angeles woman is stepping forward to say she is the
] daughter of the late Senator Strom Thurmond of South
] Carolina and a black woman who once worked as the
] Thurmond family maid.
]
] The woman, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a retired
] vocational school teacher, says she has incontrovertible
] evidence, including financial receipts and cashier's
] checks demonstrating his support for her and personal
] notes -- showing that Mr. Thurmond, once one of the
] nation's leading segregationists, was her father.

] For years, Mr. Thurmond was a staunch supporter of
] segregation. He broke with the Democratic Party in the
] late 1940's to run for president in 1948 as a Dixiecrat,
] embracing the notion, as he said at the time, that "on
] the question of social intermingling of the races, our
] people draw the line." Ms. Washington-Williams was in
] her early 20's at the time.