The US state mourns its longest-serving senator while Republicans scramble to choose a successor
The South Carolina state house is a microcosm of the US’s contradictions. Outside there are memorials to the Confederate war dead and African American history. Below a statue of Strom Thurmond, a longtime US senator and racial segregationist, are the names of his five children including Essie Mae, whose mother, a Black maid, was 15 when Thurmond impregnated her.
Thurmond died at the age of 100 in 2003; his successor, Lindsey Graham, a lifelong bachelor who never had children, died last Saturday at 71. His sudden exit leaves a void not just in Washington but the state that molded Graham, elected him to the Senate four times and wrestled with his shape-shifting journey from Ronald Reagan Republican to Donald Trump sycophant.
Continue reading...This article was originally published by The Guardian and written by David Smith in Columbia, South Carolina.
Read original article on The Guardian