James Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served for forty-eight years as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes. Thurmond later represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 until 2003, at first as a Democrat and after 1964 as a Republican. He switched out of support for the conservatism of Republican presidential candidate and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who shared his opposition to the... 1964 Civil Rights Act. He left office as the only senator to reach the age of 100 while still in office and as the oldest-serving and longest-serving senator in U.S. history . Thurmond holds the record for the longest-serving Dean of the United States Senate in U.S. history at 14 years. He conducted the longest filibuster ever by a lone senator, in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length, nonstop.
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