begins in late july, 1992. i'm on a flight from washington to charlotte. i have been an intern on capitol hill that summer. what if my regrets was that i had never seen strom thurmond -- one of my regrets was that i had never seen strom thurmond. he has such a unusual appearance about him. i am on the flight and i look ahead in front of me. i see a man who has got orange colored hair. these first-generation hair plugs. i think to myself, "that must be what strom thurmond's head looks like." of course, it was strom thurmond. i knew that when people were trying to shake his hand, that kind of thing could i wanted to shake his hand -- thing. i wanted to shake his hand too. i was about to speak to my father's rotary club and tell him about all the famous people i have met in washington, and so i was trying to shake his hand, but as i got off the plane, there were already people lined up to shake it could -- shake his hand. i did not get . i don't have anything to say to him, really. i was a bit self-conscious, it was a busy airport with a lot of different kinds of people. i was self-conscious about stand in line it to meet him. this is a man best known for his own segregation is a precious segregationist -- for his own segregationism.. i walked down the concourse and looked back. everybody had shaken his hand. he was 89, with a briefcase in one hand and a travel bag and the other. he had a package under one arm, shuffling down this busy, crowded airport. without thinking, i went back and introduced myself. "i was on capitol hill the summer and would be happy to take you to your next flight." he said, do you have enough time? i said, i would be happy to do it. we walked for 10 minutes. i tried to make conversation with strom thurmond. i told him about the people i have met that summer. he said nice things about the various colleagues i met. i told him i'm on the way to -- i had a girlfriend from florence and said something silly about south carolina girls. i got him to his flight, and i shook his hand again. that was it. the story really is a metaphor for the difficulty i have been writing about -- the challenge i face in writing about this figure. there is no easy way to write about a figure as controversial as strom thurmond. i wonder if some of the stuff in the book is an effort on my part to carry on his baggage. goodness knows, he has got baggage in other challenge i have is the kind of fight the urge to not simply walk away, to not meet the men face-to-face and present him as a three-dimensional character, living, breathing. what i wanted to do was to write a book, a history of his america. in a way that would shed light on some of the issues that have shaped america today. i would hope to add a sense, i hope you can add a measure of recent and passion to these issues that embroil politics today. that is the mission, as it were. what are the big issues. -- issues? what are the issues facing strom thurmond's america? he was a 1948 dixiecrats presidential candidate did -- candidate. he was one of the lead authors of the 1956 southern manifesto, a protest of the supreme court decision in brown versus board of education, 1954. he is the recordholder of the longest one-man filibuster. it is in the guinness book of world records. 24 hours, 18 minutes, he spoke against the 1957 civil rights go -- rights bill. he is one of the last jim crow demagogues. he was. he was also one of the first of the sun belt conservatives. what do i mean by that? it is one of the major stories in the history of 20th century american politics. that is part of the flow of industry and jobs and resources from the population of the states from the northeast and midwest to the south and southwest in the post-world war ii. they were receiving lots of funding from the federal government to build military installations. states like mississippi, georgia, texas, florida, southern california, arizona, were all being transformed in the era after world war ii. this was the era of sun belt dominance. every president elected from 1964 to 2008 comes from the sun belt. lyndon johnson, gerald ford doesn't count because he was never elected. jimmy carter from georgia. ronald reagan from california. george bush from texas five -- via connecticut. 2008 ended 40 years of sun belt dominance. they tended to have conservative ideas and strong national defense, and opposition to unions in defense of free enterprise. it is in the sun belt, the south and southwest, that we see the rise of what we will talk about as the "religious right." the rise of academic and fundamentalist voters. strom thurmond was at the forefront. national defense. he was a staunch anti-communist with an important role in right-wing anti-populist politics. it was one of the things that led him to switch parties in 1964. he was a key figure in opposing labor unions. he worked alongside barry goldwater in the late 1950's. early in his career, he had been a staunch advocate of unions in the 30's and 40's when the union vote was important. he switches in the 50's and 60's and by the 70's was a diehard supporter of business over labor. he had an important role in conservative evangelical politics. he joins the board of jones university in 1950 to win votes. bob jones had just moved, and thurmond needed votes in south carolina. he lost a large number of votes in the country, beginning a long process -- in the up-country, beginning a long process for the evangelical folks getting involved in the political process. we need to understand, strom thurmond's racial politics in the midst of these other conservative causes, other conservative issues, he was very involved in, and to see how they intersect with each other, and in doing so, it gives us an idea of what strom thurmond's america looks like and what was going on in the south. conservative history too often strom thurmond is left out of, because he is a cartoonish figure from the south. let me give you an introduction that speaks to this. one reason we forget about strom thurmond is because he was so doggone old. right? [laughter] prof. crespino: he predated the founding generation of what is commonly understood as the modern conservative movement. he was the founding editor of national review and one of the modern figures of conservativism are stored in antebellum missed state -- antebellum state in south carolina. i don't know if any other man in public life whose views i entirely approve of, he wrote to thurmond. his son had started new magazine. he bought thurmond a year's subscription. he said that thurmond's son was a fine public speaker. one of the most notorious editorials buckley published came during the signature battle and thurmond's career. "why the south must prevail" appeared four days before his filibuster. this is 1957's national review. "the south is entitled to take such measures as they are prepared to prevail politically and culturally in the areas they do not predominate. the white community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race." buckley junior and thurmond would operate in separate polls in conservative politics. it is easy to forget that buckley was once a fledgling writer and publisher trying to put himself into a world of politics and letters. thurmond was a priceless contact for father and son votes. later, thurmond would not be the only conservative leader with the segregationist record in need of scrubbing. the mid-20th century conservative american right was smaller and more interconnected than we remember. his life is interesting for the light that it sheds on sutter national politics in the second half of the 20th century. the man lived to be 100 years old, and his life was full of twists and turns. psychological complexity. unintended consequences. secrets. we know the secret of having fathered an african-american daughter that we learned about after his death. i want to talk about the motivation of thurmond, and what drove him. the most important figure in his life is his father, who had an interesting career. his father was an up and coming young politician in the political machine of pitchfork ben tillman. he is an infamous demagogue of the jim crow south. he was the biggest man in south carolina, and thurmond's father was a lieutenant, a county prosecuting attorney. he was on the rise when he got into a dispute one afternoon. the man actually picked a fight with thurmond saying he was complaining about a position he had not been appointed to be in. he cursed to thurmond and they got into a fight. the man came back around to his law office, and thurmond shot the man. he was acquitted for self-defense. if you try to build political career, it doesn't help if you have been on trial for murder. that's not good. [laughter] prof. crespino: he would run for the house of representatives just a couple of years later, and he is a distant third. he became an important behind-the-scenes guy in south carolina. he supported important candidates. one campaign he managed was very influential. it was the 1964 gubernatorial election between ira jones, that was the candidate that strom thurmond's father will thurmond supported. thurmond would always tell the story about how he got involved in politics weird -- politics. "when i was nine years old, i saw the race between ira jones -- he was never known for his position on the stump as a speaker, but that is the way he told the story. it is a formative story. others have missed what is important about that story. he recalls that debate as his first lesson in political self-defense. thurmond encountered at age nine and impressionable age a powerful demagogue in spaced -- and experienced ms both strange and delivering. he offered his own form of -- it was this he drew upon denouncing the civil rights bill of 1957. he committed total war on the "unlawful irrigations of power" in the supreme court. he also remembered the disdain of his father. it was one reason why it later in his career, he would embrace magical thinking about his own adventures, attending to rationalize. the polls would swing, established in that 1912 race. ira jones was hamstrung, and despicable as he was to his father, was stylish, in formidable. the fair-minded in the principled became commingled in his mind as political weakness. thurmond knew this was a path to the influence and renown that his father always longed for. there's one thing i want to say about his early years about one of the great things i found while doing research. i found it from a gentlemen from edgefield, a man who was himself a historian and close friend of the thurmonds. he pointed me to the biography of francis butler simpson. -- simkins. this magnum opus is a biography of pitchfork ben tillman. at some point, he sat down to write this kind of gossipy, thinly fictionalized account of his hometown. this thing was never published, and is now preserved only in the archives at longwood university where simkins taught. it offers a unique look at edgefield and the era in which will thurmond was the most influential figure in edgefield's political life. any review a little bit of this. -- let me read you a little bit of this. "francis butler simkins sat down to write a thinly fictionalized memoir about growing up in edgewood." "it is only preserved today in his personal papers and longwood -- in longwood." "simkins actually grew up in the house across from where strom thurmond grew up." "simkins was five years older than strom thurmond." "he wrote about two characters, and these fictional characters follow so exactly the real life of compliments of will and strom thurmond as to make significance superfluous." "at one point, he refers to them by name." "the manuscript provides intimate perspective on will and strom thurmond and edgefield." "he describes hogg as cold-blooded in his law practice ." "he pronounced him deserving of the honorary degree awarded to him by the university of south carolina." "hogg was a man of moderation who 'refused to speak unkindly of anyone.'" "the distinctive portrait that appears is that of a fixer." "he sues lynch would county with machinations so secret, a quality that had led blease to deride him as a pussyfoot." cole blease attacked strom thurmond's father, calling him "pussyfoot bill." for the way he went around behind people's backs and didn't attack them man-to-man. despite visiting the man before he left town to tell him how greedy was to see him go, stone student was of a different breed. his willingness to -- the other was stone, and it was from his mother's side that he is said to have inherited a pension for acts of while folly. -- wild folly. he dissipated a fortune in numerous enterprises. stone lacked hawk's good sense. stone attracted enemies. characteristics of hogg and stone provide context for a defining event betwenn will and strom thurmond -- between will and strom thurmond. among the servants employed at the home of strom thurmond was a 16-year-old african-american girl named carrie butler. butler gave birth in 1925 to a who she named as he may -- named essie mae. mary washington, another sister, raised her alone. until she was 25 did she learn yet and the mother, and three years later, she met strom thurmond. her birth in october coincided with an abrupt occupational change for thurmond, who had been a schoolteacher in edgefield. on the day that essie mae is born, she announces he has -- he announces he is taking a job as a real estate agent in virginia, until several months after essie mae moved to pennsylvania. then he comes back to edge filled and teaches high school. he departed the same month as essie mae's birth. we do not know if will thurmond played any role in the career change. it is hard to imagine the demand so careful with appearances, so mindful of reputation and so hopeful about his son's ambitions would not have had some hand in making sure that his sons ambitions did not imperil his prospects. he knew how a useful mistake could alter a political career. perhaps he handed over money to make sure the baby was transported out of the state. a quiet conversation with some of carrie bulter's relatives would have all of the required -- would have been all that was required. there may have been a difference between father and son, a sense of discretion that did not make it from one generation to the next. there remains the details of the acts of his miscegenation. this would never impact him at any point in his 3/4 century political career. he would take it to his grave. it is remarkable how this is secret persisted so long. by the 90's, it was the worst kept secret in south carolina. some newspaper reporters tracked her down living in los angeles. in 1957, when thurmond gave his filibuster, there was an item published in the african-american newspaper, the chicago defender, and the book was puzzling over how it was the thurmond was able to speak for 24 hours and 18 minutes if only one bathroom -- with only one bathroom break. the story thurmond told the press was that he had gone down to the senate steam room and had intentionally dehydrated himself so that when he drank water, his body would absorb it like a sponge. i asked a urologist. he was pretty dubious. [laughter] prof. crespino: what was interesting about that piece in the african-american newspaper, the chicago defender, is they said the rumor about capitol hill was that thurmond had been outfitted with a device designed for long motor trips, a catheter. there was a memoir published by an african-american man from south carolina, a longtime worker on capitol hill, who says he was there when thurmond was outfitted with a bag that ran down his leg. there is no other evidence of that kind of thing. it's one of those urological mysteries. [laughter] prof. crespino: at the end, that item that is largely about the mystery of the filibuster, there is an statement. "there are rumors that thurmond is not as opposed to black people as it might seem." you know. there have been rumors in 1948 that he had black cousins. we also know that as he was already enrolled in school in south carolina. there had already been rumors in the black community ever since then. the remarkable thing that happens after thurmond passes away is that essie mae announces that he was her father. they changed his monument. "we've got the other names on the monument of his children, we should put essie mae on it." you know how they say that if it is written in stone, they can't change it? that's not true. they changed all the time -- they change stone all the time. i talked to the guy that changed the strom thurmond memorial. you take granite dust and pound it into a fine powder and mix it with crazy glue, so when it hardens, it is harder than stone itself. they pounded into where the letters are carved, just above the surface of the stone. they sanded smooth and carve over the filled area. that was the trick. at her name on the bottom in the space there, it says "father of four children." they changed "four" to "five." if you look at that powder really, really fine, finer than baby powder, it is close to chipping. that five got chipped, and the "v" is squiggly. the sanding opened the stone to air. it has a rust color, and the whole thing is there. you can see a kind of scar on the monument. the stone is scarred by the work done to change "four" to "five." i reflect on the way people can read the significance of the scarred stone. in reading that monument, you think about the legacy of strom thurmond on politics today. in the south, and in the nation. if you want to read that stone, buy this book. [laughter] prof. crespino: read it for yourself. i will even sign the book. it is painless. it has been a pleasure to see you walk about -- see you all come out. [applause] prof. crespino: i think most of you, if you have questions, can probably -- have probably asked them before in another context. >> i am david mcnamara. i am proud to know you. i'm sure your father is smiling on you. my question is about trent locke and his comments back when he got in trouble by praising him, saying that he was his mentor. prof. crespino: he said his state had voted for thurmond in 1948. he said other states should have voted for him and we wouldn't have these problems. it happened in 1980. trent lott said that in 1980 when he was introducing strom thurmond here in jackson. strom thurmond was the main speaker in 1980. for me, it was interesting, because lott is a figurative child of strom thurmond. all in my last chapter, i deal with revelations about essie mae and try to put them in a broader historical context. these are his little children -- literal and figurative children, a generation of southerners who did a big switch. that is what i am talking about, in the last chapter. i talk about that incident, just as part of thurmond's reaction to reagan in 1980. in 2002, that was thurmond's 100th birthday party but also a going away party. his last year in the senate, his term was up in january 2003. he goes back to edgefield and lived for only six more months. the controversy goes with the whole modern conservative movement. who was strom thurmond and who was trent lott? what is interesting is how other republicans and conservatives respond to that issue. respond to the controversy. that is part of the analysis. they are interpreting thurmond. what a lot of national leaders were doing is trying to keep thurmond as a crazy old uncle of the conservative resolution -- revolution, a guy who is not important to the conservative movement in the last 50 years. what my book argues is that he was there, all along, at key moments, he was a key figure. people took him seriously, not just like a republican strategist kook. goldwater didn't think he was a kook. nixon didn't think he was a kook. that's important. that controversy raised broader issues about thurmond's role in modern conservative history. it is one of the things that brought me to write the book and -- write the book in the first place. before wright and thurmond were on the same ticket, they were rivals. early on, the whole dixiecrats thing was a result of proposals truman gave and 48 -- gave in 1948. at a governors conference, that is withholding starts -- that is where the whole thing starts. thurmond says what they need is a 40 day cooling off to figure out what to do. he offered a resolution for a cooling off period, which got adopted. but, as he asked people what to do, he realized not many people wanted to cool off. they wanted to stay fired up. thurmond doubled down. the reason, and many people in south carolina recognize this, is that strom thurmond was looking ahead to 1950. his gubernatorial term would be up. he couldn't succeed himself and wanted to run for the senate. next rung on the ladder. it is ironic. he ran for president to run for the senate. he ran for the presidency in 1948 to establish himself among the states rights crowd. to make a name for himself. ironically, he had been somewhat of a liberal. he called the fbi in to investigate a lynching in 1947. that was not a popular thing to do. it was a fascinating moment in his career, when a lot of things were really moving around. >> over the years, i have read ken barber was the architect of the modern conservative movement. i notice his name is not listed in the index. prof. crespino: haley barbour has played a huge role. he was anonymously talented. -- enormously talented. he was party chairman in 1996. he was important figure in kind of -- and kind of an important southerner in building the modern gop. and there is lee atwater. he comes out of the political shop of strom thurmond, who has a really huge influence on the gop in the 1980's. he runs the george bush campaign in 1988. i don't talk about barber, because this is about strom thurmond's story and influence. there were coming out of different states, and atwater was barber's age. thurmond was around a long time, 48 years. it is more about the fact that barber is from mississippi. any other questions? >> your criticized by a man in the wall street journal. prof. crespino: i'm glad you brought this up. [laughter] >> his name was lee edwards. prof. crespino: he has written several histories of the conservative movement and has been a member of it, important person to it. i can tell you that, but one thing that did disappoint me about mr. edwards writing that review is that one of the things he takes issue with is i call him thurmond's ghostwriter for the only book thurmond wrote. it was his former staffers who characterized his work on the book as ghostwriting. after talking to them, i e-mailed mr. edwards and asked him if i could interview him about what kind of work you did and that kind of thing. he said four years ago that an interview would be a waste of time and mind. he got a number of other things wrong, and he quoted goldwater speaking with thurmond and talking about equal rights in south carolina a few days before the campaign in 1964. it began with him saying there was as many confederate flags as american flags. the only key issues in thurmond's career, he says come over constitutionalism and national security. i don't think that passes the laugh test. we all know about strom thurmond's career. i was disappointed at the wall street journal thought that this man, who had a close relationship with thurmond, had been employed by him. he had missed that in the review. they thought he was the best person to evaluate the book for their readers. >> who had no knowledge that you had no knowledge of that being done at a time, they didn't tell you that, that he was going to be the person. do you have any other papers, like the new york times or anything? prof. crespino: the washington post and washington monthly. google "strom thurmond's america." you should. [laughter] >> was next? -- what is next? prof. crespino: i just finished this one. i'm still trying to figure it out. thank you all for coming out. it has been a real pleasure. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> i see enjoying the fabric of our country and how things work. i had no idea they did history. it gives you that perspective. >> i'm a c-span fan. >> this weekend, the experience in operations desert shield and everett storm -- desert storm. on g day, ifnt in you can picture all these helicopters coming up in the air at one time and it turning to into anh and turning operating cobra, it sends chills up your spine to be part of that lift. to have been part of the first lift in the operating based cobra. it was exhilarating. time i probably the last live. this will probably be my last day. what an exhilarating moment to set up this operating pace cobra in iraq. the war started moving pretty quick. the war started accelerating. we were taking the advantage. we were not engaging so much the national guard. we were engaging the republican but -- guard. they were having a bad day. watch the entire program on sunday. ,his is american history tv only on c-span3. so many of my books per horizontal studies. earth, covering a minimum of six countries. here i look at one country in exploree in i use it to great themes. the holocaust. the cold war. the challenge of vladimir putin. amanians in moldova yet have longer per with ukraine than poland. to study romania is to study the legacy of empires. q&a, a 30 year journey through romania and beyond. he talks about the history of the balkans and romania's struggle to gain democracy. >> it was an extremely corrupt country. institutions. everything was based on five -- bribes and doubledealing. population had grown up and become far more sophisticated and was demanding clean government. it's the number one demand. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on q&a. next, stan eaton. he talks about the commercialization and consumerism in post-world war ii america. emergence ofhe cars, television it, and suburban communities. this program is about an hour. >> this is part of the historical society. this brings educational programming to over 100,000 students and teachers across the state. it's a pleasure and honor for me to introduce a colleague that i have worked with for nearly 20 years. of theenior historian georgia historical society. stan is a native of georgia. he holds a masters degree from the university of georgia and up phd from the university of florida. one of his duties is to serve as the managing editor of our quarterly, the scholarly publication. ofis best known as the host today in georgia history, a daily program produced by the historical

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