Cory Booker Breaks Senate Speech Record Held by Strom Thurmond
He stood for justice longer than the man who stood against it.
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On April 1, 2025, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) broke the record for longest speech in U.S. Senate history.
The previous record was held by Senator Strom Thurmond (D [as inDixiecrat]-SC) who spoke to impede passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
Thurmond’s speech lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes. Sen. Booker’s lasted just over 25 hours.
There is a poetic justice in a Black Senator speaking up for democracy against an autocratic regime breaking the record of an avowed segregationist who wanted to suppress Black voting rights.
Thurmond’s Segregationist Speech
In 1957, toward the beginning of his two dozen hours of speaking, Thurmond laid out his racist reasoning.
The sovereign States are protecting their citizens in the right to vote. Yet there is a big cry and a big hue about a voting law. As a matter of fact, the only thing that instigated this bill was the desire of both parties, the Democratic and the Republican, to play to minority votes. That is the purpose of this bill. It is purely political.
Why, yes, Sen. Thurmond. A bill proposed in Congress is indeed…political.
The Senator from South Carolina continued:
Some persons say, ‘Well, the States won’t enforce the voting laws. We have got to have a Federal law. Some States deny the vote to citizens.’ I question that. Has there been a single instance brought before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate of the United States and proof presented that anyone has been denied the vote?
Strom Thurmond stood before the U.S. Senate and read into the official record that he questions whether Black people had ever been denied the right to vote.
The audacity.
In Thurmond’s own state of South Carolina, white supremacist politicians called a state convention to rewrite the state’s constitution in order to disenfranchise Black voters.
As a condition of re-entering the Union after the Civil War, former Confederate states had to rewrite their constitutions to include rights secured under the Reconstruction Amendments. South Carolina did so in 1868.
But when white leaders in South Carolina regrouped, they took back political control by rewriting the state constitution.
The Convention of 1868 was the fruit of the Reconstruction Acts, which were notoriously unconstitutional…That Constitution was made by aliens, negroes and natives without character, all the enemies of South Carolina, and was designed to degrade our State, insult our people and overturn our civilization.
After the white delegates of the convention passed the new state constitution in 1895, Black people were effectively barred from voting through suppression and intimidation tactics such as poll taxes, literacy tests, job loss, property destruction, and lynching.
Strom Thurmond built a legacy as one of the most anti-democratic and racist politicians of the Jim Crow era.
Power to the People
Today, Sen. Booker has crafted exactly the opposite legacy—as one of the most pro-democracy elected officials of the 21st century.
When he heard from colleagues that he had broken Strom Thurmond’s record for longest speech in Senate history, Sen. Booker had words about the previous record holder.
“To hate him is wrong, and maybe my ego got too caught up that if I stood here, maybe, maybe, just maybe, I could break this record of the man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand. I’m not here though because of his speech. I’m here despite his speech. I’m here because as powerful as he was, the people were more powerful.”
Strom Thurmond stood in the Senate to stop Black people from voting. Cory Booker stood in the same chamber to make sure our votes still count.
Thurmond used his voice to uphold white supremacy. Senator Booker used his to fight creeping autocracy.
This isn’t just poetic justice—it’s a political redemption. The same tactics once used to block civil rights are now being wielded to defend them.
The record for the longest speech in Senate history no longer belongs to a segregationist. It belongs to a Black man fighting for democracy.
The arc of history doesn’t bend on its own. Sometimes, it takes 25 hours and four minutes of standing up to make it move.
How did you feel when you found out Senator Cory Booker was still speaking after 24 hours, and after he broke the record for longest Senate speech? Comment below.
If you want to take your own bold stand for democracy, join us Thursday (4/3) for the live virtual launch of my new video series, “Roadmap to Ruin: How the Church Can Resist the Dismantling of Democracy.”
Roadmap to Ruin: How the Church Can Resist the Dismantling of Democracy
When the trailer dropped, something resonated.
Sen. Booker is not the only person who took a stand to defend democracy. Learn all about democracy’s historical heroes in my latest book, The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance.
He was so inspiring! I was moved to tears at some points, and thrilled to see his Senate colleagues helping out with "questions". And he gave me the words for a sign for Saturday's protest: "You can't lead the people if you don't love the people". Perfect!!
Thank you Sen Booker. You literally “offer(ed) your bod(y) as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship." Romans 12:1. You stood for all Americans, for the best of who we can be.