Oral History Interview with Virginia Foster Durr, March 13, 14, 15, 1975. Interview G-0023-1. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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Abstract
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.
Excerpts
Brutality and violence in frontier life
The romanticized myth of slavery as told by whites in the New South
Race relations on a New South plantation
Noblesse oblige in a wealthy southern family
Use of the Old South among middle-class New South whites
Violence in the South
The duel between Edward Ward Carmack and Duncan Brown Cooper
Durr's relationship with her father
Learning racial etiquette
Learning racial etiquette
Repairing relationships broken by racism
Learning racial etiquette through fighting
Durr's father has to leave his church
Moving up through New South society
Learning gender roles
Physical and social environments in Birmingham
Learning about sex in a racially divided city
The ways class separated various religious groups
Training middle-class southern belles
Poverty in the New South
Pretensions and delusions of the wealthy classes in the New South
Ironic forces contributing to Durr's feminism
Josephine Foster marries Hugo Black
Hugo Black and the Ku Klux Klan
Advantages of racism for white southern women
Gender roles and their impact on women's lives
Ways women found power despite society's gender structures
Durr goes to Wellesley
Ideas of masculinity and class drive Durr's family into debt
Women find power through their sexuality
Durr's realizes how racism controls her life while at Wellesley
Meeting wealthy industrialists unaware
Durr learns about independence
Learning about sex at Wellesley
Durr first fears black men
Durr gets her first job and meets Clifford
Durr delivers her first child
Family responsibilities and Hugo Black's political career
Poverty spurs Durr into her first social justice campaign
Learn More
Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
Subjects
Southern States--Race relations
Women civil rights workers
The Southern Oral History Program transcripts presented here on
Documenting the American South undergo an editorial process to remove
transcription errors. Texts may differ from the original transcripts
held by the Southern Historical Collection.
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