This comment just blows my mind: Thurmond's niece, Ellen Senter, said she would speak with Sharpton if he were interested. "I doubt you can find many native South Carolinians today whose family, if you traced them back far enough, didn't own slaves," Senter, of Columbia, S.C., told the Daily News. She added: "And it is wonderful that (Sharpton) was able to become what he is in spite of what his forefather was."