Essie Mae Washington-Williams - Legacy

Legacy

When Washington-Williams announced her family connection, it was acknowledged by the Thurmond family. In 2004 the state legislature approved the addition of her name to the list of Thurmond children on a monument for Senator Thurmond on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds.

Washington-Williams said she would apply for membership in the United Daughters of the Confederacy, based on her heritage through Thurmond to ancestors who fought as Confederate soldiers. She encouraged other African Americans to do so as well, in the interests of exploring their heritage and promoting a more inclusive view of Southern history among lineage societies. She said,

"It is important for all Americans to have the opportunity to know and understand their bloodline. Through my father's line, I am fortunate to trace my heritage back to the birth of our nation and beyond. On my mother's side, like most African-Americans, my history is broken by the course of human events."

The lineage society is for female descendants of Confederate veterans of the American Civil War. As her father Thurmond had been a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, she could use his completed genealogical documentation of links to participating ancestor(s). She also intended to join the Daughters of the American Revolution.

In 2005, Washington-Williams was awarded an honorary Ph.D. in education from South Carolina State University at Orangeburg when she was invited to speak at their commencement ceremony. That year she had published a memoir, Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond (2005), written with William Stadiem. It explored her sense of dislocation based on her mixed heritage, as well as going to college in the segregated South after having grown up in Pennsylvania. It was nominated for both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize.

Washington-Williams said that she intended to be active on behalf of the Black Patriots Foundation, which was raising funds to build a monument on the National Mall in Washington D.C. to honor American blacks who served in the American Revolutionary War. (This organization became defunct the following year. Another group is now raising funds for the monument.)