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Author Essie Mae Washington Williams booklist (click here)

Book Review By Addie Line
Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond by Essie Mae Washington

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.


Plot & Themes
Ethnic/Relig. of subject (inside)
If this is a culture clash: - minority culture living in majority area
Ethnic/regional/gender Yes
Period of greatest activity? - 1950+

Subject of Biography
Gender - Female
Profession/status:
Ethnicity - Black
Nationality - American

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 2 ()
United States Yes
The US: - Deep South
City? Yes
Small town? Yes

Writing Style
How much dialogue in bio? - significantly more descript than dialog
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