Durr, Virginia Foster

Biography:

Birmingham, Alabama native, wife of Clifford Durr (who served in the Roosevelt administration's Federal Communications Commission), and sister-in-law of Supreme Court justice Hugo Black. Active in the Women's Democratic Committee, once vice chairman of the National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax, and a leader in the Southern Conference on Human Welfare, Durr ran for a U.S. Senate seat from Virginia on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948. Durr, a friend of Parks, attended civil rights meetings, opened her home to out-of-state students who came to take part in voter registration drives, and posted bail for Rosa Parks after her arrest for refusing to go to the back of the bus. In 1954, she was brought before Mississippi Democratic Sen. James O. Eastland's International Security Subcommittee, which corresponded to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

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