New York City
Black activist Al Sharpton has a surprising connection to the late, onetime segregationist politician Strom Thurmond, the New York Daily News reported this week. Sharpton’s great-grandfather Coleman Sharpton was once a slave of Thurmond’s distant cousin Julia Thurmond, genealogists said. The Daily News, with Sharpton’s consent, asked a team from the Web site Ancestry.com to research Sharpton’s lineage. He now plans to seek DNA testing to learn if he was actually related to Thurmond, who once ran for president on a segregationist platform. After Thurmond died in 2003, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, 78, revealed that she was the daughter of Thurmond and the Thurmond family’s black housekeeper.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
10 concert tours to see this upcoming fallThe Week Recommends Get ready for pumpkin spice season with concerts from big-name artists
-
How to put student loan payments on pauseThe Explainer If you are starting to worry about missing payments, deferment and forbearance can help
-
Is Kash Patel’s fate sealed after Kirk shooting missteps?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION The FBI’s bungled response in the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting has director Kash Patel in the hot seat
