The Searcy College
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from the Southern Scribe Author Wayne Greenhaw I was invited to the home of Clifford and Virginia Durr ..... The night before the end of the march from Selma to Montgomery stands alone as the most memorable Civil Rights event for me personally. On that night, after listening to Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Sammy Davis Jr. and Harry Bellafonte in the field behind St. Jude’s Catholic Church, where many of the marchers were camped, I was invited to the home of Clifford and Virginia Durr on South Court Street. There, crowded into the narrow hallways, were New Yorker writer Nat Hentoff, historian C. Vann Woodward, folksinger Pete Seeger, and many more. In the middle of the living room sat this skinny man in a rocking chair, smoking unfiltered Pall Malls, talking in a whispery voice. The room was quiet, every eye riveted on Cliff Durr’s thin lips, everyone listening. That night began a lifetime friendship. Many afternoons and evenings were spent in their home in Montgomery or in rural Elmore County. Cliff, who’d been on the FCC in Roosevelt’s New Deal had signed Rosa Parks’ bond and had been Dr. King’s first lawyer, was a gentle genius. Virginia, who’d fought for women’s suffrage, abolition of the poll tax, and who’d been friends with Eleanor Roosevelt and friendly with Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson, was a firebrand until she died in her 90s. Her rebellious spirit inspired my one-actress play, Rose: A Southern Lady, which was produced at Faulkner University in Montgomery and later by students at Searcy College in Arkansas. |
Compiled from numerous
sources by Chird Bobbitt Also see The White County Historical Society |
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