Columbia, S.C. ? Essie Mae Washington-Williams walked alone into the spotlight at the downtown Adam’s Mark Hotel, limping without her gray metal cane, and gave voice to the secret she had kept for more than half a century out of respect for her father, his political career and his family.

“My father’s name is James Strom Thurmond,” Williams said, her amplified voice cracking and tears flooding her eyes. “I am Essie Mae Washington-Williams, and at last I feel completely free.”

Thus Williams, 78, proclaimed her heritage Wednesday as the daughter of a black woman and the white former segregationist who became the nation’s longest-serving U.S. senator.

Her remarks at the news conference were brief. She said she was born in Aiken, S.C., on Oct. 12, 1925. Her mother, Carrie Butler, was a maid who worked in the home of Thurmond’s parents. Williams was raised by an aunt in Pennsylvania. She said her birth mother introduced her to her birth father when she was a teen-ager. She is considering offers from publishers to write a book about her life.

Williams reiterated that she had no interest in sharing the deceased senator’s estate. She said she came forward because her four children, 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren should know that their “lives have meaning and importance in American history.”

Their history, she said, is as significant as that of Sally Hemings, the Virginia slave who may have shared children with Thomas Jefferson. Millions of mixed-race children were born during slavery and segregation and lived the black experience without knowing their white fathers, historians say.

“This is something I’m quite concerned about,” Williams said. “These are the stories you haven’t heard about. I think we’re hearing it now because of the prominence of Strom Thurmond.”

Thurmond, who in 1948 ran for the presidency on a segregationist platform, died in June at age 100 without acknowledging publicly that he had fathered a child with Butler, though speculation on that possibility had been part of South Carolina political lore for decades. Williams’ parentage was disclosed Sunday in The Washington Post.

An audience of about 220 black and white South Carolinians applauded Williams for speaking out and for inspiring a moment that some said could improve race relations across the Deep South.

“The most important thing to me is what it means in terms of tearing away the veil of secrecy shrouding these types of relationships,” said Jack Bass, a South Carolina historian and author who is white. “Across the South, many black people are aware of their white ancestry, even though they don’t know the parents. But white people never talk about it. White people are going to be stunned by the emotional content of this.”