This Day in History: 2003

"And in the case of little 

Essie Mae Washington-Williams, 

Strom Thurmond, you ARE the father!"

After a half century* of Senate service highlighted by the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator (24 hours and 18 minutes in an attempt to bring down the 1957 Civil Rights Act) the family of the late segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond acknowledged Essie Mae Washington-Williams' claim that she was Thurmond's illegitimate mixed-race daughter. 

And though Thurmond never acknowledged Washington-Williams when he was alive, young Essie Mae, in an attempt to feel closer to her biological father, would often fall asleep to the soothing sounds of some of Strom's most inspirational political speeches -- like this heart-warming 1948 stump speech he made as the Dixiecrat presidential candidate:

*While still technically the sitting Senator, a Jim Henson-created Muppet-likeness would be used for all public appearances from 1984 until his death.