States' Rights Party

The passage of a strong civil-rights plank was the final straw that led to a convention walkout of key Southerners, who formed their own States' Rights Party with Sen.

The author writes candidly of the convoluted relationship she shared with Thurmond, but adding that she believes her life began at age 78, in 2003, when she confirmed that she was the long-rumored Black daughter of the man who as the presidential nominee of the "Dixiecrat" States' Rights Party vowed to keep Blacks out of the institutions of White Southern life.

Trent Lott (R-Miss.) was roused from wherever he was sitting shiva for Strom Thurmond and the States' Rights Party. "This is not a Democrat or a Republican issue," Lott thundered.

After the national Democratic convention in Baltimore overwhelmingly rejected this plank, Yancey explored the creation of a states' rights party. North Alabama leaders condemned these steps.

Referring to Thurmond's 1948 presidential bid as the nominee of the States' Rights Party (which defended state-imposed segregation of the races), Lott suggested that if Thurmond had won the presidential race, then "we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years."