Thurmond set a record opposing civil rights. A Black senator broke it.

By Petula Dvorak · The Washington Post (c) 2025

Sen. Strom Thurmond took a long steam bath to dehydrate his body for what he was about to do on a sticky August night in 1957.

The Civil Rights Act was about to pass and Thurmond, a Democrat from South Carolina who was an unabashed segregationist, broke with the Southern Democratic ranks to stand alone and speak – for 24 hours and 18 minutes – against it.

That record stood until 8:05 p.m. on April 1, when Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) wrapped up his 25-hour and 5-minute speech to protest President Donald Trump.

Booker broke Thurmond’s record by 47 minutes.

Just as he was about to break Thurmond’s record Tuesday night, Booker said, “I’m not here … because of [Thurmond’s] speech. I’m here despite his speech. I’m here because as powerful as he was, the people were more powerful.”

Thurmond wouldn’t call his epic talk a filibuster, but he was unabashed about his opposition to the Civil Rights Act.

“There’s not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches,” he said during his 1948 campaign for president as a third-party Dixiecrat.

He maintained the familiar line that this was not about civil rights or racism and that his stance had everything to do with state’s rights.

Reporters filed dispatches throughout the night as it became clear this wasn’t going to be a simple speech.

They realized Thurmond understood he couldn’t stop the Civil Rights Act, no matter how long he managed to speak. There had been a “gentleman’s agreement” to avoid a filibuster. And his fellow senators were irked.

One aide explained it to a press pool reporter: “The senator says he has some education to do.”

But it became clear as the night dragged on: This was a stunt to make a name for himself. Thurmond was aiming to break the record set in 1953 by Sen. Wayne Morse, an independent from Oregon who went 22 hours and 26 minutes to oppose giving submerged oil lands to the state.

“We are just as amazed as everybody else,” one of Thurmond’s assistants, who had been relaying water, orange juice and thin soup for him, told a New York Daily News reporter.

The aides also told the reporter that “Thurmond was not equipped with any mechanical device for personal convenience” during the talkathon as they marveled at his stamina.

For decades after the stunt, Thurmond frequently bragged about his steam bath technique.

His wife, Jean Thurmond, served him “a huge sirloin steak” after the bath, and he began speaking at 8:54 p.m.

“Thurmond went back to reading in a monotone,” the News Journal from Wilmington, Delaware, reported, after Thurmond had a chance to pause after another senator gave him a respite by asking a question.

“Occasionally he would raise his voice to interject comments on some of the material, but he obviously was becoming tired. He was leaning heavily on a small stand placed on top of his desk.”

Like sports announcers, reporters watching the spectacle analyzed Thurmond’s tactics. They noted how he dropped his voice to a whisper to preserve it, and his delicate sips of broth.

Two aides stayed beside him, handing him more papers to read, including voting laws for each state and Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.”

He munched on malted milk tablets from his coat pocket. He took very small sips of water.

Before dawn, Thurmond went on to read a history of Anglo-Saxon juries.

The reporters noted that Thurmond was looking “haggard.”

“An aide, sitting at his side, slumped deeper in his chair and looked even more worn than the senator,” a reporter noted.

Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) gave Thurmond a rest by getting unanimous consent to make a speech.

Thurmond posed for a photographer and made a dash to the Senate restroom.

At least two people were there for most of the speech, reports said.

One was his wife, who came in and out of the “wives’ gallery,” consistently in a tailored dress and a double-strand pearl choker.

The other was Clarence Mitchell, a veteran Black lobbyist for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The person who wasn’t there and whose existence was largely unknown to his colleagues and constituents at the time was Thurmond’s Black daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, who was in her early 30s at the time and eventually wrote a memoir, after her father’s death.

The senator who spoke for years and then hours against the civil rights movement had fathered a child with a teenage Black maid his family employed. His daughter first met him in 1938 and learned who her real mother was, a beautiful woman who came into her life wearing pearls and a beautiful dress and instructed her to dress well but to go light on the lipstick for a trip. She was 16, the same age her mother was when Thurmond got her pregnant.

“I’m taking you to meet your father,” the daughter recalled her mother saying in her memoir. They came to a stately law office and Washington-Williams thought maybe her father was a driver for a fancy lawyer. Then she wanted to embrace the Black servant who opened the door. But they went into the inner sanctum of the law office and stood before Thurmond.

“Essie Mae,” her mother said, “meet your father.”

The two stayed loosely in touch, and Thurmond helped support her and eventually his grandchildren. She said she tried to avoid the television during the years he railed against integration and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

She was disappointed that August day in 1957, when he argued against equal rights for her and his grandchildren.

“The daylong filibuster,” she wrote, “was regarded as a far more prodigious display of bladder control than statesmanship.”

A gift appeared on Thurmond’s desk at the 15th hour. It was a brought by a gray-haired man, Sen. Paul Douglas (D-Illinois), one of the Senate’s most liberal members and a vociferous advocate of civil rights.

Thurmond nodded his thanks as Douglas turned and strode quietly out of the chamber. It was a tall pitcher of orange juice and Douglas had poured him a tall, tempting glass.

Thurmond took a very small sip.

It was never determined whether it was a gesture of kindness or a tactic to hasten an end to the spectacle.

At the 22-hour mark, Thurmond said the civil rights bill was unconstitutional and “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Sen. William Knowland (R- California) responded by suggesting Thurmond’s speech was cruel and unusual punishment of Congress.

“It would be cruel and inhuman punishment of the citizens of this country if you pass this bill without trial by jury,” Thurmond snapped back.

Groggy and faltering, he made a slow, sweeping gesture toward the Supreme Court, denouncing “those nine men” for their decision outlawing school segregation.

“If I had the time,” he said to the remaining senators, who chortled at his comment, “I’d tell you all the decisions handed down by this Supreme Court.”

When the galleries were again packed, Thurmond announced, deadpan and with a final flourish, that he would be voting against the Civil Rights Act.

When he finally stepped down, Congress applauded, for various reasons.

His wife greeted and hugged him as he headed to the Democratic cloakroom.

“You need a shave,” a reporter heard her say.

“He did, too,” the reporter added.

The compromise bill passed 60-15 two hours later, before Thurmond had a chance to go home and shave.