Strom Thurmond died yesterday at the age of 100. America’s longest serving senator has been reviled in Slate numerous times over the years. Here are a few of the highlights.
Two years ago Jacob Weisberg correctly predicted Thurmond’s demise almost to the month using actuarial models. In 1997 David Plotz assessed the Senate’s two “villainous, superannuated Carolinians”—Thurmond and Jesse Helms—arguing that Capitol Hill’s tacit forgiveness of their past sins was a “twisted Inside-the-Beltway version of ancestor worship.” Last year Tim Noah debunked the myth that Strom ever apologized for his early segregationist stance. And for readers who love horror movies: Akhil Reed Amar’s 2000 worst-case scenario on how constitutional vagaries and a split electoral college might have resulted in … President Thurmond. May he rest in peace.
