Many benefits of integration for South Carolina
Segregation was not something Thurmond had to learn to notice or adjust to; he says he grew up accepting the practice as the preferable way of life for people of both races. He feels that an increase in opportunities, especially educational opportunities, has made integration a positive development. In that sense, he feels that South Carolina has been very effective in making integration work.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Strom Thurmond, July 20, 1978. Interview A-0334. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
You mentioned race a couple of times and maybe you'll give me an
opportunity to mention that. What is your first awareness as a boy and
when you were growing up when you became aware, obviously, that there
are races, and that there was segregation and how you began to absorb
that.
- STROM THURMOND:
-
Well, we just accepted it. In other words, it was unheard to think about
mixing the blacks and the whites. It was just plain unheard of.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
Well, you had black people working for you didn't you, in the house?
- STROM THURMOND:
-
That's right, worked with them in the fields and worked with 'em
everywhere. Liked 'em, done anything for 'em, or loaned 'em money. When
I was a lawyer I represented 'em whether they could pay or not and do
things for 'em, help 'em every way I could. But it was just considered
unheard of that you would mix 'em in the schools and churches and such
as that. They were happy to go with their own race to those places, I
think at that time certainly. But as time came on and they became better
educated and they dressed better and had better facilities for bathing
and everything like that, it changed the whole picture. And of course as
time has gone by, they were afforded more opportunities; I
think that everybody right now just accepts it. But a lot of people
don't understand that at the time I was governor and when Byrnes was
governor, that, well, you held up your hand and enforced the law, and
the law was segregation. It wasn't they were against the blacks, it was
just a law of the state. Although we didn't have to enforce it because
the people enforced it themselves, because they were satisfied to have
it that way. I'm glad that things have changed now where there are
better opportunities and I want to see 'em have
every opportunity of everybody else.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
Do you think if you were governor and you tried to break down
segregation, the people and the state legislature would have revolted
against you.
- STROM THURMOND:
-
Yeah, they were not ready at that time to do it.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
Byrnes, of course Byrnes was governor after you.
- STROM THURMOND:
-
Yeah, Byrnes was governor after me. And he defended the case when the
Brown decision was handed down. They were just not ready at that time to
go that far. But it was just a matter of time, they're getting better
educations, which I tried to provide for them, and I'm sure Byrnes is
too. It's just a matter of time until the situation would come. But it
just takes a little time, you can't do it all over night.
- JAMES G. BANKS:
-
Do you think we've reached now the point where we could call it an ideal
race relationship? I mean, that we are in equality, we have equality in
society?
- STROM THURMOND:
-
Well, I wouldn't say it's ideal. Undoubtedly there are pockets, in my
state and in every other state, where probably there still is some
feeling maybe that they're not satisfied with everything about the
blacks. But I do say this, I think South Carolina has gone as far and as
fast as any state in trying to provide equal opportunities. And I think
they ought to provide equal opportunities, I'm in favor of that. I think
the best thing you can do for 'em is to educate 'em. If you educate
'em; as I say, I've established scholarships in four different
black colleges. I want to do everything I can to help 'em. I've helped
the black;well I got the President of Morris College here
tonight. Thanking me after we got a four hundred
thousand dollar grant last year for a new building over at Morris
College in Sumter. He's just thanking me for it, and expressing his
desire that I be reelected seeing how much I've done for him and
everything.