Oral history interview with Virginia Durr, February 6, 1991

Civil rights activist Virginia Foster Durr describes her involvement in the nascent civil rights movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Durr was among those white elites, like Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Clifford, who supported black activists as they began organizing what would become the familiar civil rights movement of the 1960s. In this interview, she describes some of her experiences with the movement. The interviewer performed this interview as he was gathering information for a book, and this approach reveals itself as he corroborates facts rather than drawing out detailed thoughts on certain issues. As a result, this interview does not contain many passages useful for excerption, but interested researchers should read through it for a snapshot of some of the activism that was taking place in the American South before the 1960s.