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CNN Live At Daybreak
Political Passion of Strom Thurmond
Aired June 27, 2003 - 06:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Bruce Morton now takes a look back at the career of America's longest serving senator.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STROM THURMOND, FORMER UNITED STATES SENATOR: The Senate will come to order. The chaplain will now deliver the morning prayer.
BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): So many years. Born in 1902, no radio, no TV, the Wright Brothers hadn't flown yet and babies wore gowns. The family home at Edgefield, South Carolina. Ninth grade at Edgefield High, 1918. Senior at Clemson, 1922. Ran on the cross country team. It won the state championship. Parachuted into Normandy on D-Day and captured this odd vehicle from the Germans. Elected governor in 1946.
THURMOND: We bid you goodbye.
MORTON: And after segregationists walked out of the Democratic Convention in 1948 over a civil rights plank, ran for president in '48 as the Segregationists States' Right candidate.
THURMOND: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the part of this president to dominate this country by force and to put into effect these uncalled- for and these damnable proposals he has recommended under the guise of so-called civil rights.
MORTON: He won four states in what been the solid Democratic South. Harry Truman won the White House.
In 1954, Thurmond won a Senate seat. Dwight Eisenhower was president. They were just building the interstate highway system. People shopped in downtowns, not malls.
In 1957, he staged the longest one-man filibuster in Senate history, denouncing a civil rights bill for 24 hours and 18 minutes.
But as the times changed, as the civil rights bills became laws, Thurmond changed, too.
THURDMOND: The law was to provide separation of the races. When it all changed, I obeyed the law.
MORTON: He backed the Martin Luther King holiday and was the first southern senator to hire a black for his staff.
THURMOND: Time brings changes, and you can't go too far ahead of your people. You have to lead the people as best you can.
MORTON: This was the Republican State Convention in 1996, crowd on its feet, fanfare blaring as the old man walked. Would he make it up the stairs? He would.
As president pro tempore of the Senate, he was third in line for the presidency, and he did something no one had done in more than 100 years.
THURMOND: Do you solemnly swear...
MORTON: Swore in a chief justice who would preside at the trial of an impeached president. What a life, almost half as old as the country, how much change he saw, what a dance. What a dance to the music of time, and mostly it went his way.
THURMOND: We're going to win. We always do.
MORTON: Not quite always. He missed in that run for the White House, but in South Carolina you couldn't beat him.
Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired June 27, 2003 - 06:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Bruce Morton now takes a look back at the career of America's longest serving senator.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STROM THURMOND, FORMER UNITED STATES SENATOR: The Senate will come to order. The chaplain will now deliver the morning prayer.
BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): So many years. Born in 1902, no radio, no TV, the Wright Brothers hadn't flown yet and babies wore gowns. The family home at Edgefield, South Carolina. Ninth grade at Edgefield High, 1918. Senior at Clemson, 1922. Ran on the cross country team. It won the state championship. Parachuted into Normandy on D-Day and captured this odd vehicle from the Germans. Elected governor in 1946.
THURMOND: We bid you goodbye.
MORTON: And after segregationists walked out of the Democratic Convention in 1948 over a civil rights plank, ran for president in '48 as the Segregationists States' Right candidate.
THURMOND: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the part of this president to dominate this country by force and to put into effect these uncalled- for and these damnable proposals he has recommended under the guise of so-called civil rights.
MORTON: He won four states in what been the solid Democratic South. Harry Truman won the White House.
In 1954, Thurmond won a Senate seat. Dwight Eisenhower was president. They were just building the interstate highway system. People shopped in downtowns, not malls.
In 1957, he staged the longest one-man filibuster in Senate history, denouncing a civil rights bill for 24 hours and 18 minutes.
But as the times changed, as the civil rights bills became laws, Thurmond changed, too.
THURDMOND: The law was to provide separation of the races. When it all changed, I obeyed the law.
MORTON: He backed the Martin Luther King holiday and was the first southern senator to hire a black for his staff.
THURMOND: Time brings changes, and you can't go too far ahead of your people. You have to lead the people as best you can.
MORTON: This was the Republican State Convention in 1996, crowd on its feet, fanfare blaring as the old man walked. Would he make it up the stairs? He would.
As president pro tempore of the Senate, he was third in line for the presidency, and he did something no one had done in more than 100 years.
THURMOND: Do you solemnly swear...
MORTON: Swore in a chief justice who would preside at the trial of an impeached president. What a life, almost half as old as the country, how much change he saw, what a dance. What a dance to the music of time, and mostly it went his way.
THURMOND: We're going to win. We always do.
MORTON: Not quite always. He missed in that run for the White House, but in South Carolina you couldn't beat him.
Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
