Prior to becoming DeKalb's Schools Superintendent, Thurmond was an attorney at Butler Wooten Cheeley & Peak LLP, a nationally known civil trial practice that has four times set the record civil jury verdict in the State of Georgia and also obtained for its client the largest collected judgment in U.S. history.

in Philosophy and Religion from Paine College and later earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law.

President Barack Obama based part of the American Jobs Act after the Georgia Works model.

Thurmond's most gratifying accomplishment as a public official was the construction of a $20 million school for young people with disabilities at the historic Roosevelt Institute in Warm Springs, Georgia.

He won overwhelmingly in the Democratic Primary, and went on to win by a significant margin over his Republican opponent in the November 2016 General Election.

In April 2010, Thurmond announced his intention to run for the United States Senate, challenging incumbent Republican Johnny Isakson.

[3] He lost the general election to Isakson and was succeeded as Commissioner of Labor by former state representative Mark Butler, a member of the Republican Party.