"What's in a name?" asks Shakespeare. Lots, as it turns out. Ask Essie Mae Washington-Williams. Or should we say Essie Mae Thurmond? We heard about her a couple of weeks ago as the story broke that the late Senator Strom Thurmond, who rose to national prominence on a platform of absolute racial segregation, had, as a young man, fathered an illegitimate child with a black maid employed by his parents.

"I am Essie Mae Washington-Williams and, at last, I feel completely free." So said this retired schoolteacher from California, who had just revealed the family secret. According to subsequent reports, the Senator's "secret" was generally well known, and through the years he maintained an open relationship with his daughter, albeit more than somewhat distanced. How special it would have been t…