To Julian Bond from Virginia Durr, 5 Nov 1968

2 Felder Avenue

Montgomery, Alabama

November 5, 1968

Dear Julian:

Thank you so much for coming! I know how tired you must be, and how exhausted your mother says you are, and when you did not get to Tuscaloosa, we gave up all hope. I know it was a real effort for you to come and we all appreciate it very much and I especailly. Also we were so delighted to see John Lewis and think he made a great contribution.

Whatever happens to day I know you will have made a contribution toward rationality, which is what we do sadlylack here in Alabama and after hearing Gov. Madox introducing Gov. Wallace last night, I do not think you have an abundace of it over in Georgia- God on Heaven^! what a pair, and both filled with the same feeling of having been " looked down on, held in contempt, degraded " by "Big Eastern Money,"all of which of course is absolutely true, but then to think they can solve their own lack and feelings of inferiority by trying to look down on someone else! I do think the poor white southern man is the greatest gull of all times, he has been gulled and hornswoggled and given not much of anything in the way of health, education and welfare, and only had to feed his wounded sould on his whiteness. I am glad you are young and have a long life ahead of you, I am getting old and tired of the absolute stupidity of it. Not that I intend to give up, it just gets old and wearisome to fight the same kind of stupidity all the time. To think how I^mine and your father's generation fought for the right to vote, and when we finally got it we gave people like Wallace and Madox their great majorities. How I fought for the rights of women and finally got Lurleen^!

But I must say Julian , you make me feel young again. I feel I can trust both your intelligence and your committment, above all, you refuse to turn the whole issue of freedom into a battle which is the most illogical thing of all. I trrust and pray that in some way we can turn it into a battle against poverty. Heywood Burns stayed with us last week ( he is a great friend of my daughter and her husband -knew them at Yale- and is also married to a darling girl whom we know and like so much and who all connected up with our friends in England, particularly Julie Gaitskell who is Hugh Gaitskell's daughter⁾ He has^│the same kind of reasoned calm you have and we think he is wonderful, we just wonder which of you will first become President, hard choice! and he says it is impossible to turn the battle from race entirely and I can agree to this, but I do get tired of it, and I am sure you do.

Whatever the outcome, and I am afraid it will be Wallace All the Way, we are going to challenge those elected on the Democratic ticket who openly supported Wallace as both the senatorial and all the Congressmen did. He, of course is running on the Democratic ticket over here so we have a good case and if the people in Washington seat these Wallace democrats as bona fide Democrats, then we will know we simply have to start fresh, as that will be our signal that they do not intend to change. I am enclosing John Conyer's letter and I think he will help us. I have written to Willie Brown of California and to Jesse Unruh and I wish you would write to Gene McCarthy, since I have never even met him in spite of my fervid admiration for him.

As you can see by the enclosures, Rufus Lewis endorsed both Whaley and Allen on the Wallaceticket, which rather exposed the pretence of the Donkey ticket being anti-Wallace. I wonder what they think people will swallow? To say you are against Wallace and then endorse his chief followers- this really is too much. For too long Rufus Lewis has led people down the garden path to ruin and futility. Sheriff Amerson came on last night and disassociated himself from us, in fact gave the impression he had never been with us. I was sorry to see it but glad in that it confirmed my own impression of him, which was that he was simply a Black Jim Clark. That is why I hate to have politics based on race as then people are lumped and good and bad are all alike and I think he is really bad news.

Basically I think politics has to be founded on trust, there simply has to be a group of people who trust each other, and I think there is a beginning of that here and in the South and I hope it grows into something significant. We need so badly some means of communication. I had hoped the TEXAS OBSERVER would serve, but they say they have no money- it would take $250.00 per issue to put in another page on the South, have you any ideas about what could serve to hold the challenge groups together and to hold them together with the McCarthy groups? The SOUTHERN COURIER might if it wasnot tied to Ford Foundation which has successfully emasculated it, so it has become more or less a wailing wall . When you get rested up do give this some thought.

I have writted Conyers, as you know Mrs. Rosa Parks is his Secretary or one of them, so I do have an in there, but I am sure you have a much better one and if you get over being so tired and weary, do write him, as we have to get the movement not to seat our Wallaceites as Democrats. They can't take away seniority as they did John Bell Williams, but they could refuse to let them be a part of the Democratic caucus.

Thanks again for coming, it really helped a lot. I will see you at John's wedding and tell your mother we accept her invitation with pleasure to stay there. I will write her too.

Sincerely and affectionately your*old friend, Va. Durr

( time of friendship - notage)

(signed) Virginia Durr