Strom

First elected to public office in 1929, Strom Thurmond was a pivotal figure in the nation's politics for more than seven decades, particularly when it came to issues of race: the Dixiecrat presidential candidate in 1948, originator of the 1956 "Southern Manifesto" against the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, holder of the record for a Senate filibuster for his opposition to the 1957 Civil Rights Bill. Yet as a young man Thurmond had secretly fathered a daughter with the family's black maid, and quietly supported her through college and beyond. Journalists Bass and Thompson both covered…