Selected Archives on Robert Durr

Abstract: Robert Durr (1899-1954) was the founder/editor of the Birmingham Weekly Review from about 1934 and was visible promoting the Faith by 1943. He was born near Braxton, Simpson County, Mississippi. A newspaper journalist, editor, and minister, he was raised to the position of General Editor in 1933 at another newspaper. Then he moved back to Birmingham and founded The Birmingham Weekly Review, and his involvements multiplied.

Rather suddenly, in the available record, Durr begins including Bahá’í-related articles in his Weekly Review in January 1943. This pattern grows such that by August, he is quoting the Guardian. By May 1944, he is visible with a short list of attendees as a delegate to the National Bahá’í Convention and Intercontinental Conference for the Centennial of the Declaration of the Báb. Meanwhile, Durr also received the Wendell Willkie Honorary Mention Award for Negro Journalist from President Truman.

By 1947, Durr was a recognized civic leader. His efforts ranged from supporting legislation to make the KKK illegal, seeking a Governor’s Commission on Minority Affairs, publishing editorial articles in other newspapers, and co-represented Governor James Folsom of Alabama at the National Freedom Day commemoration of the adoption of the 13th Amendment. [ed - an event at which Elsie Austin was a national speaker.]

For about a year, Durr was named editor of the Bahá’í World Order magazine for 1948-1949 and invited to edit other non-Bahá’í periodicals too. Across the same period, Durr engaged in some travel teaching opportunities into the early 1950s. However, seemingly out of the blue, and with little clarity of why, he died on March 13, 1954. Various eulogies were published in the region. More should be said.

Archives provided by Edward Sevcik of the U.S. National Bahá’í Archives, August 2025.