[1] Durr was a close friend of Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt, and was sister-in-law (through her sister's marriage) of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who sat on many crucial civil rights cases.
[4] Durr was born in Birmingham, Alabama, where she was raised by black women but was also taught that the Ku Klux Klan were protectors of southern womanhood.
[8] Durr, uncomfortable with this idea, protested this rule, but ended up dealing with it after the head of her house threatened to release her from the university if she didn't embrace the rotating tables policy.
Clifford married Virginia Foster Durr in hopes of her being a house wife and great social figure while he became a very successful and influential corporate lawyer.
[13] In 1938, she was one of the founding members of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW), an interracial group working to reduce segregation and improve living conditions in the South.
[12] She worked jointly with liberal political leaders in order to gain the necessary support needed for legislation, which ultimately resulted in the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
At that time she said, "I believe in equal rights for all citizens and I believe the tax money that is now going for war and armaments and the militarization of our country could be better used to give everyone in the United States a secure standard of living.
"[citation needed] Her opponents were Democrat Absalom Willis Robertson, Republican Robert H. Woods, Independent Howard Carwile and Socialist Clarke T. Robbe.
During the McCarthy era, a time where there was intense anti-communist suspicion in the United States where one made accusations of disloyalty without proper evidence, Durr was called to New Orleans to appear before Senator James Eastland's Internal Security Committee, where they investigated suspected Communists.
[1] In 1951, Durr returned with her husband to Montgomery, Alabama, where she became acquainted with local civil rights activists like Rosa Parks, Aubrey Williams, E.D.
[5] Durr supported the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) workers by housing and taking care of many volunteers who came to Montgomery to work on voter registration issues.
[16] Both Clifford and Virginia supported the Voting Rights Act, as well as provided legal advice to many blacks facing jail time and lawsuits despite the criticism they received from their white colleagues.
"[19] During the summer of 1955, Myles Horton, a close friend of Durr, asked her to recommend a black person to attend workshops at Highlander Folk School, the purpose of which was to put into effect the recent Brown v. Board of Education decision.
In her autobiography, she recalls “I spent all my time making coffee and frying bacon and eggs for them.” [17] After the boycott, Virginia remained an involved civil rights activist, including working for a variety of organizations such as the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
The appeal, she stated, "sets people on fire," especially white teenagers who "pursue you downtown [in Montgomery] with Wallace stickers and it's almost your life if you refuse one, as they look at you with such hatred ... and go on screaming 'Stand up for Alabama.
"[23] President Bill Clinton said after her death: "Her courage, outspokenness, and steely conviction in the earliest days of the civil rights movement helped change this nation forever.
[3] Her memoirs cover the New Deal era, the beginning of the Cold War, her participation in the US presidential campaign of Henry A. Wallace, Anti-Communism and McCarthyism, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Some years later, she saw Priscilla Hiss at the wedding of the oldest child of Clark Foreman (founder of the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee and a Wallace aide during the 1948 elections).