Albert Watson (South Carolina)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Albert William Watson was a South Carolina politician. Watson was born in Sumter, South Carolina and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He graduated from the University of South Carolina law school in 1950 and opened a law practice in the state capital, Columbia. Watson was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1954, representing Richland County. He served from 1955 to 1958 and from 1961 to 1962. In 1962, Watson won the Democratic nomination for South Carolina's 2nd congressional district. He faced Floyd Spence, a fellow state representative from neighboring Lexington County who had turned Republican a few months earlier. The election was far closer than expected, with Watson winning by only five percentage points largely due to the support of his mentor, Senator Strom Thurmond. The district, based in Columbia, had been under growing Republican influence for some time. Like Thurmond, Watson was an ardent segregationist