Remembering Thurmond

Philadelphia Inquirer: It is typical when a person dies to eulogize him or her with fond recollections of the good that person did. The bad is left unsaid, though not unremembered. Thus former colleagues of retired Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., stopped business Thursday to note his death at age 100 with kind words and a moment of silence.
But not even the hush of the Senate could muffle the deafening roar of memories of Thurmond's segregationist past. There are probably many South Carolinians who associate Thurmond with whatever good he did that state as this nation's longest serving U.S. senator. But for the rest of America, it's a different story.
Presidential candidate
Thurmond arrived on the national scene in 1948 as the presidential candidate of an upstart party that tried to mask its racism as states' rights. He got a million votes and laid the groundwork for a strategy that in later years allowed the Republican Party, which he later joined, to break up the Democrats' once Solid South.
Elected to the Senate in 1954, Thurmond spent the next 17 years fighting civil rights. But in 1971, after voting-rights laws had changed the complexion of his electorate, he became one of the first Southern senators to hire a black aide. Asked in 1999 if he would like to do anything differently as a politician, Thurmond said, "I can't think of anything." His eulogists should remember that.