Durr's activism started once she joined the local Council of Human Relations, Montgomery's only interracial political organization. Durr supported the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) workers by housing and taking care of many volunteers who came to Montgomery to work on voter registration issues. She became the "unofficial den mother for young activists," close friend Dorothy M. Zellner says. Both Clifford and Virginia supported the Voting Rights Act, as well as provided legal advice to many blacks facing jail time and lawsuits despite the criticism they received from their white colleagues. They supported the sit-in movement and Freedom Riders. Virginia and her husband offered sleeping space to students coming from the North to protest. Through the couple's work for civil rights, they became close associates of E. D. Nixon, who was the president of the Montgomery NAACP chapter.