Mrs. Durr was a formidable activist who frequently defied local racial mores). Rosa Parks’s relationship with the Durrs showed the complexity of human relationships in the South, for she was both employee and friend. The Durrs were friends of Ed Nixon, one of the most militant blacks of his generation, and Virginia Durr once asked Nixon, the head of the local NAACP, if he knew of anyone who “did good sewing.” (She had three daughters, so a good deal of raising and lowering of hems went on in her home.) Yes, he said, and mentioned his fellow officer in the NAACP chapter. Soon Rosa Parks started
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