LWVAL Adds Its Voice to the Nomination of Virginia Durr for the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame

Of all the entries in the 1995 LWVAL publication Women Who Made A Difference In Alabama, none deserve inclusion more than Virginia Foster Durr. As Tuscaloosa Leaguer LaVerne Ramsey wrote in the book, Virginia Foster "was born to the privileges of aristocracy ...[ and ] married a fellow aristocrat, attorney Clifford Judkins Durr." But as her autobiography by that name explains, she stepped "Outside the Magic Circle" of society and privilege to become, with her husband and her brother-in-law, Senator and later Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, a strong spokesperson for the civil rights of all Americans. She got her start in Washington, while her husband worked in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a New Deal agency, and servants helped care for her children, by becoming active in the fight for removal of the poll tax, which disenfranchised both black and white women, who often had no money of their own. Working for reforms with people who were considered extremely left-wing, she endured the accusations of Communist sympathies leveled at many liberal reformers in the 1940s and '50s.

Then the Durrs returned to Alabama just in time to become involved in the civil rights movement sparked by Rosa Parks' famous bus ride. When Mrs. Parks was arrested, Clifford Durr was the lawyer who defended her. That case and the Durrs' continuing active support for the civil rights movement made them outcasts in Montgomery society. Eventually, they sent their four daughters to school in the north because of their mistreatment by classmates.

Those dark days passed eventually, and Virginia Durr became a revered and beloved daughter of Alabama in her later years, when she was also a member of the Montgomery LWV.

Miss Virginia lived well into her nineties, and has just become eligible for consideration for the Women's Hall of Fame, housed at Judson College in Marion, Alabama. It was my privilege to write the League's letter of support for her nomination. I concluded the letter this way: "Mrs. Durr's biography... in Women Who Made a Difference in Alabama concludes with this quotation from her: 'You do it because you believe it is right.' That sums up Miss Virginia's life, and is itself a sufficient recommendation for her election to the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame."

Note: Virginia Durr's nomination to the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame coincides with the 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. LWVUS participated in the VRA Commemoration and Reauthorization Conference in Washington, D.C. on July 25-26.

-- Charlotte Ward,
LWVAL Voter Editor