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Virginia Foster Durr discusses her early life and how she became aware of the social justice problems plaguing twentieth-century America. Descended from a wealthy southern family that emigrated to Alabama during the early 1800s, she begins by telling stories she heard from her grandmother about life in the antebellum South. She explains what life was like on the plantation when she was a child, focusing on race relations between her family and the black workers employed by her grandmother. Her grandmother practiced noblesse oblige, giving gifts and parties to the poorer white and black families in her community. Throughout the interview, Durr reflects on her relationship with her father, addressing his disappointment in the fact that she was a girl and listing his various disciplinary methods. While Durr's parents carefully maintained an aura of condescending tolerance toward the blacks they employed, not all of her relatives were as gentle.

After the death of her grandmother, Durr's parents advanced in Birmingham society, joining the country club and other social organizations. She repeatedly returns to the issues surrounding southern female gender identity, especially for elite women. She talks about how her social circle dealt with issues of sexuality and describes the racial and class divisions that ran through Birmingham during her youth. As teenagers, Durr and her sister Josephine, along with many other young southern belles, were sent to New York City for finishing and socialization. While there, Josephine met and married Hugo Black, the future Supreme Court Justice. Durr asserts that while her sister and Hugo Black had a happy marriage, the relationship stifled something within her sister. Nevertheless, the other women in her family never questioned the roles and even averred that women who fought for more rights had immoral reasons. Durr managed to convince her parents to send her to Wellesley for two years. While there, she began to question many of the assumptions that had governed her relationships and behaviors while in Alabama. Because of financial problems, Durr left Wellesley after her sophomore year, returning home to spend a year as a debutante. When she failed to find an eligible offer that year, she took a job at the law library, where she met her future husband, Clifford.

Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection

Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews

Southern States--Race relations

Women civil rights workers