VIRGINIA FOSTER DURR
Referring to Montgomery Alabama in 1950.
Campaigning for the U. S. Senate in Alabama in 1948. This was a remarkably courageous statement to make in 1948 when racism and segregation was rampant in the South. Potentially losing the election was a minor risk compared to the very real threat of the KKK and other racists physically assaulting her or killing her. Both were very common as lynching to intimidate opponents of segregation was a common occurrence.
Virginia Foster Durr was an American white civil rights activist and lobbyist. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1903 to Dr. Sterling Foster, an Alabama Presbyterian minister, and Ann Patterson Foster. At 22 she married lawyer Clifford Durr, with whom she had 5 children, one of whom died in infancy. 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. Her circle of friends extended to Alger Hiss. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 2006.
