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Sharpton's Ancestor Was Owned by Thurmond's
They found that Sharpton's great-grandfather, Coleman Sharpton, was a slave owned by Strom Thurmond's distant cousin.
Coleman Sharpton was given as a gift to Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was the late senator's great-great-grandfather, said Mike Ward, a spokesman for Ancestry.com. Coleman Sharpton was later freed.
  Al Sharpton, left, said learning of his family's link to the family of Strom Thurmond "was probably the most shocking thing of my life." (Sabo, Robert - Photo By Robert Sabo/new York Da)
VIDEO | Research shows the Rev. Al Sharpton is descended from a slave owned by the relatives of the late South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond.
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Al Sharpton met Strom Thurmond once with his friend James Brown, the late singer, who knew Thurmond and wanted to pay him a visit while in Washington.
"I was not happy to visit him because of what he had been all his life," Sharpton said.
Sharpton said his family origins in Edgefield County, S.C., brought him nearer to his closest mentors, Brown and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who had lived nearby. Sharpton said he mused with Brown's family about whether their families might have a shared past.
"I told his daughters last night about this, and we all wondered whether some of James Brown's family might have been slaves with my great-grandfather," Sharpton said.
While some of Thurmond's relatives contacted by the Daily News expressed skepticism about the report, Doris Strom Costner, a cousin of the late senator, said Sharpton should be proud to know his family's connection to hers. "He's in a mighty good family," she said by telephone from Edgefield, S.C.
Asked how she feels to learn of evidence that her family owned slaves, she said: "I can't help it. I'm 74 years old, and I certainly can't help it. I don't feel one way or the other." Most white South Carolinians at the time owned slaves, she said.
Sharpton said he hoped the news of his roots would help heal the lingering wounds of slavery.
"If we open the scars just to leave them open, we've done a misdeed to both sides," Sharpton said. "We should open them and deal with them toward healing them so we can come together on some genuine level."
Staff writer Rob Stein and staff researcher Rena Kirsch in Washington contributed to this report.
