Only two men have spoken on the floor of the U.S. Senate for more than 24 straight hours. One of them fought to keep Black people out of public life, the other was a Black leader who staged a landmark protest. 

On Tuesday at 7:19 p.m., Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) surpassed the late South Carolina segregationist Strom Thurmond’s longstanding record for the longest speech in the history of the U.S. Senate, which was 24 hours and 18 minutes. As his remarks stretched past that mark, Booker reflected upon the significance of his legacy overtaking Thurmond’s.

“There’s a room here in the Senate named after Strom Thurmond,” Booker said, adding, “To hate him is wrong. Maybe my ego got too caught up that, if I stood here maybe, maybe, just maybe I could break this record of a man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand.”

Booker’s colleagues broke into a standing ovation when he passed the mark. As of this writing, Booker is still continuing to speak.

“I’d like to go a little further,” he said.

Thurmond’s stand was a filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 that took place between August 28 and 29 of that year. In his lengthy diatribe, Thurmond argued that Black people did not need greater protections to ensure their voting rights. Thurmond’s case was an explicitly racist one. 

“Negroes are voting in large numbers,” Thurmond said. “Of course they are not so well qualified to vote as are the white people.” 

Booker’s speech, the plans for which were first reported by TPM, was an extensive case against President Trump. In it, he argued Trump is a threat to the country. Among other things, Booker focused on Trump’s efforts to drastically cut federal agencies and eliminate social programs, the president’s attacks on the press and other democratic and civic institutions, and the administration’s treatment of immigrants. Late Monday evening, Booker read pages of letters from constituents and activists who described their experiences and fears under Trump. Within that context, Booker framed these early months of 2025 as an “American moment” and a “moral moment” that called for aggressive opposition. 

“Every day things are happening. In the 72 days of this administration, God, if there’s not enough to upset you, to ignite you, to realize that maybe you and your family are not getting hurt, but other Americans are, our veterans are, our seniors are,” Booker said earlier Tuesday. “We’ve told their stories here over these last 21 hours — 22 hours. We’ve told their stories. People are getting hurt. People are afraid. People are worried.”

Booker’s record-breaking speech came as Trump is aggressively reshaping the country, by all appearances defying court orders, letting Elon Musk and his aides loose in a slew of federal agencies, attacking law firms, imposing tariffs that analysts predict will be economically disastrous, and launching threats to take over the foreign nations of Greenland and Canada. The remarks also followed mounting anger from Democrats and others on the left after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats voted to advance a Republican-authored continuing resolution to fund the government earlier this month. Booker repeatedly referenced that frustration and said he recognized this moment was “not normal.”

“It’s our turn. What are we going to do?” Booker asked a few hours before breaking Thurmond’s record. “All of us have to answer that question.” 

Booker framed his extraordinary protest as “disrupting business as usual.” Technically, unlike Thurmond’s remarks, Booker’s speech was not a filibuster since it was not aimed at slowing a specific piece of legislation. Instead, Booker began his remarks after a procedural vote on Monday night. 

Jeff Giertz, Booker’s senior advisor and communications director, talked to TPM on Tuesday afternoon a few hours before the record was broken.

“He took the opening he had,” Giertz said. 

While the speech was not technically a filibuster, it did delay the confirmation vote for Matt Whitaker, a former DOJ official from Trump’s first term who was nominated as U.S. ambassador to NATO. That vote had been scheduled to take place on Tuesday morning. Other pending business was also pushed back by the speech. However, Giertz stressed that those delays were not Booker’s focus. Rather, he said Booker was intent on “elevating the voices of people who feel like they’re not being heard.”  

“The point isn’t obstruction. It’s education. It’s uplift. It’s a slightly different tactic that way,” Giertz said. “I’ll let people debate whether it’s a filibuster or not. What is definitely true is it’s one of the longest speeches in the Senate as of now and it clearly accomplished what he wanted it to, which is calling attention to how Trump is harming the country.” 

Well before it was over, Booker’s speech drew hundreds of thousands of viewers across multiple platforms online and earned over 200 million likes on TikTok. It also generated a slew of headlines including some that suggested the former Newark mayor and 2020 presidential candidate had presented a new model for official opposition to Trump. 

According to Giertz, Booker began planning for the speech about a week ago. This required an extraordinary push from his staff. Booker brought back a former staffer, Marissa Brogger, who had left his office to work as a speechwriter to President Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, to work as “quarterback” for a team who prepped the materials he used on the Senate floor. Those staffers had a few marathon nights of their own in the past few days as they put together the 1,164 pages in more than a dozen binders Booker used for his remarks.

Senate procedure required Booker to remain standing and speaking continuously to hold control of the floor. He also had help from his Democratic colleagues. Many of them — including Schumer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-WI), Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), and others — interjected with questions that gave Booker brief interludes to rest his voice. Booker responded to these questions with a refrain that allowed him to let them cut in without giving the presiding officer a chance to stop his speech. 

“I yield for a question while retaining the floor,” Booker said, again and again.

Booker is a devoted student of the Civil Rights movement. Throughout his remarks, he repeatedly invoked the legacy of his colleague and friend, the late activist and Georgia congressman John Lewis. With this background, Booker was well aware of Thurmond’s record. However, knowing how daunting it could be to stand and speak for more than a day, Booker and his team repeatedly declined to say in advance that he had set out to break Thurmond’s mark. Yet, a little over 60 minutes before Booker surpassed the segregationist, Giertz indicated it would be a strong motivator in the home stretch. 

“We couldn’t predict how he would hold up, but Cory is certainly not going to stop at hour 23 out of respect for Strom Thurmond,” Giertz said.

Near the moment Booker crossed the finish line, he alluded to the fact that, as a Black lawmaker, his very presence on the floor was a direct defiance of Thurmond’s 24 hour plus effort to fight Civil Rights. 

“I’m not here though because of his speech. I’m here despite his speech,” Booker said. “I’m here because, as powerful as he was, the people are more powerful.”