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| Plot Summary of Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond |
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"At the age of sixteen Essie Mae Washington Williams discovered that she was the biracial daughter of the Southern segregationist politician, Strom Thurmond and Carrie Butler a black maid that worked on his family's plantation. She was born in 1925 when her mother was fifteen and her father was twenty two. She did not reveal her father's identity until after his death at one hundred years of age.
She spent her early years in the Northeast with an aunt who she thought was her mother. She thought she would study to be a nurse, but then her father arranged for her to attend a black college in South. She later married a young man she met at the college. "
Jack Goodstein, Resident Scholar
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"Essie Mae Washington-Williams' Dear Senator is an odyssey of self-discoveries beginning with a self-proclaimed somewhat idyllic childhood in the small northeastern town of Coatesville Pennsylvania to a sidebar in New York's Harlem Hospital where she attempts to pursue a nursing career, to university life on a post-reconstruction black campus in South Carolina, to marriage, and finally California.
As a teenager Essie-Mae meets her African American mother Carrie Butler for the first time and is later introduced to her European American father, Strom Thurmond who also happens to be a major political figure, a staunch segregationist, in the south.
Set against the backdrop of 1930's through the present the relationship between Essie Mae and her famous father is interweaved with major American political events shaping the course of both of their lives."
Addie Line, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Ethnic/Relig. of subject (inside)
- Black
If this is a culture clash:
- minority culture living in majority area
Ethnic/regional/gender
Yes
ethnic of society (outside)
- American (south)
Period of greatest activity?
- 1950+
Subject of Biography
Gender
- Female
Profession/status:
- teacher/professor
Age:
- long lived adults
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Ethnicity
- Black
Nationality
- American (!)
How sensitive is this person?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
- Smarter than most other people
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 2 ()
United States
Yes
The US:
- Southeast
- Deep South
Small town?
Yes
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- moderately detailed references to deaths
- explicit references to deaths
Commentary on society?
Yes
Commentary on
- race
Writer's slant towards subject:
- favorable
Story of entire life, or part?
- story of nearly entire life
If this is a kid's book:
- Age 16-Adult
Autobiography?
Yes
How much dialogue in bio?
- significantly more descript than dialog
- little dialog
How much is philosophy rather than life story?
- 0-25% of book
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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