woah nelly!
New York- Genealogists have revealed that the Rev. Al Sharpton is a descendent of a slave owned by relatives of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond — a discovery the civil rights activist on Sunday called "shocking."[p class="textBodyBlack"][span id="byLine"][/span]Sharpton learned of his connection to Thurmond, once a prominent defender of segregation, last week through the Daily News, which asked genealogists to trace his roots.[/p][p class="textBodyBlack"][span id="byLine"][/span]"It was probably the most shocking thing in my life," Sharpton said at a news conference Sunday, the same day the tabloid revealed the story.[/p]Some of Thurmond's relatives said the nexus also came as a surprise to them. Doris Strom Costner, a distant cousin who said she knew the late senator all her life, said Sunday she "never heard of such a thing."[p class="textBodyBlack"][span id="byLine"][/span]"My momma never would talk to me about nothing like that," Costner said of ancestors who owned slaves. "She only talked to me about good things."[/p][p class="textBodyBlack"][span id="byLine"][/span]The revelations surfaced after Ancestry.com contacted a Daily News reporter who agreed to have his own family tree done. The intrigued reporter then turned around and asked Sharpton if he wanted to participate. Sharpton said he told the paper, "Go for it."[/p][p class="textBodyBlack"][span id="byLine"][/span]The genealogists, who were not paid by the newspaper, uncovered the ancestral ties using a variety of documents that included census, marriage and death records.[/p][p class="textBodyBlack"][span id="byLine"][/span]Thurmond, of South Carolina, was once considered an icon of racial segregation. During his 1948 bid for president, he promised to preserve segregation and, in 1957, he filibustered for more than 24 hours against a civil rights bill.[/p][p class="textBodyBlack"][span id="byLine"][/span]Sharpton, who ran for president in 2004 on a ticket of racial justice, said he met Thurmond only once in 1991 when he visited Washington, D.C., with the late soul singer James Brown, who knew Thurmond. Sharpton said the meeting was "awkward."[/p][p class="textBodyBlack"][span id="byLine"][/span]"I was not happy to meet him because what he had done all his life," Sharpton said.[/p][p class="textBodyBlack"][span id="byLine"][/span]Thurmond was seen as softening his segregation stance later in his life. He died in 2003, at 100. The long-serving senator was originally a Democrat but became a Republican in 1964.[/p][p class="textBodyBlack"][span id="byLine"][/span]Thurmond's children have acknowledged that Thurmond fathered a biracial daughter. Essie Mae Washington-Williams' mother was a housekeeper in the home of Thurmond's parents.[/p][p class="textBodyBlack"][span id="byLine"][/span]Telephone message left by The Associated Press on Sunday for Strom Thurmond Jr. and an attorney who once represented Thurmond's biracial daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, were not returned.[/p][a href="vny!://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17326922/"]vny!://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17326922/[/a]
Al Sharpton
Strom Thurmond
They sort of have the same head structure...
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