A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond Read Online Free Page A

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Publisher
Author
Reginald Hines, Simon & Schuster
Strom Thurmond

    O FFICE OF S ENATOR S TROM T HURMOND
217 R USSELL S ENATE B UILDING
W ASHINGTON , D.C. 20515
    July 22, 2002
    Mr. Martin A. Snell
    Senior Editor
    Simon & Schuster
    Dear Mr. Snell:
    I seem to have created a great many false impressions in my time, but your response takes the cake. Still, as a man of business, I am prepared to overlook what is really a stupefying number of quite preposterous inferences you have made and proceed as if they had never reared their heads over the top of the basket, writhing baby kittens struggling to get out.
    Yes, Mother was a doozey, that’s for sure. She provided me with what she called “a warm breast and a sheltering wing.” She meant well, Mother, but she was erratic in her breast and wing work. She would, without notice, show up at school and sit at the next desk, stroking my knee. If no desk were available, Mother would take to the floor, legs and dress akimbo. “Embarrassment” is not the word for what I felt, but neither is “comforted.” By the 8th grade, mother had grown proportionately as I had, doubling in size every 5-6 years, while still offering me her warmth at, how shall I put this, inopportune times and inappropriate places: pep rallies, dances, tag-day sales, hayrides. Misplaced parental zeal, I guess you could say, though which of us is anxious to hurl that particular rock first?
    You ask about my “exact position” vis a vis this project. Let me say, first, that any editor who regards “vis a vis” as expressive prose does not inspire confidence. And what is the force of “exact” in “exact position”? Do you suspect that I would give you only an approximate idea, a hint, a distant sniff? Do you suppose I would lie? Perhaps I might say I was the Senator’s great aunt! You never know, do you? Well, you ought to know; and if you do not, perhaps another publishing house would.
    As I have said several times, I am advisor to the Senator and deeply entwined with his inmost thoughts and passions. What’s not clear about that?
    The contract you send says nothing about (a) film rights, (b) an advance, (c) translation opportunities, (d) expert scholars and writers (at least some of whom must surely be African Americans themselves) to work with the Senator on this project. This will be the Senator’s work, of course—how could it be otherwise? To assure that it is, we (you) will assemble a team to bore deep into the subject, as it were, and into the Senator as well. What will emerge will be of profit to you, in a sordid sense, and to the Nation, in a larger sense.
    The book will be finished inside six months. You have my word on that.
    So, send a new contract and some suggestions on writers and scholars (some authentically black) and we will, as you put it, “move.”
    Devotedly,
Button
    p.s. The historical and intellectual