US: At age 22, Strom Thurmond, a segregationist who went on to become the longest-serving US Senator, had an affair with a 16-year-old black maid, Carrie Butler. A child was born, in 1925, but until Senator Thurmond died in June, aged 100, this was kept a secret.
Yesterday Thurmond's daughter, a 78-year-old retired teacher, confirmed that the Senator was her father, and that he had maintained her as a child.
"I am Essie Mae Washington-Williams and at last I feel completely free," she said with quiet dignity after making her first public statement at a press conference in her native South Carolina.
The grey-haired Ms Washington-Williams said she did not come forward earlier because she did not want to jeopardise Thurmond's political career and his family.
"Throughout his life and mine we respected each other," she said. "I was sensitive about his well-being and his career." She was not bitter or angry, she said, "in fact, there is a great sense of peace that has come over me in the past year; I feel as though a great weight has been lifted."
Thurmond had a long record of opposing civil rights for African Americans, though he mellowed in later years and appointed the first black staff member in the Senate.
He waged the longest filibuster in Senate history, 24 hours and 18 minutes, in opposition to 1957 civil rights legislation, and in 1964 became a Republican because of Democratic support for civil rights .
"I knew him beyond his public image," she said of her father. "He did a lot of things to help people. Certainly I never did like the idea that he was a segregationist, but there was nothing I could do about it. That was his life."
Several people around Thurmond were aware of her existence, said Ms Washington-Williams, who now lives in Los Angeles.
Thurmond never denied she was his daughter and his family said this week they acknowledged Williams's claim. The former senator's oldest son, US Attorney Strom Thurmond jnr, said he would like to meet his half-sister.
She decided to come forward after Senator Thurmond died. "Not everyone knows about these stories that help to make America what it is today," said Ms Washington-Williams, to warm applause for her statement.