WUNRN
From Today in Peace & Justice History
Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a housewife and mother of 5 from Detroit, Michigan, driving
marchers back to Selma from Montgomery in Alabama, was shot and killed by Ku
Klux Klansmen from a passing car. She had driven to Alabama to join the march
after seeing on television the Bloody Sunday attacks at Selma’s Edmund Pettus
Bridge earlier in the month. It was later learned that riding with the Klansmen
was an FBI informant, Gary Rowe.
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Viola Gregg Liuzzo Biography
Civil
Rights Activist (1925–1965)
Viola Gregg Liuzzo was an activist in the Civil Rights
Movement in the 1960s.
She was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan for her
efforts.
“[We're] going to change
the world. One day they'll write about us. You'll see.” —Viola Gregg Liuzzo
Synopsis
Viola Gregg Liuzzo traveled to Alabama in
March 1965 to help the Southern Christian Leadership Conference—led by Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr.—with its efforts to register African-American voters in
Selma. Not long after her arrival, Liuzzo was murdered by members of the Ku
Klux Klan while driving a black man from Montgomery to Selma. She was the only
white female killed during the Civil Rights Movement.
Civil
Rights Activist
Civil rights worker Viola Gregg Liuzzo was
born Viola Gregg on April 11, 1925, in California, Pennsylvania, part of
Washington County. Viola Gregg Liuzzo traveled to Alabama in March 1965 to help
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference—led by Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr.—with its efforts to register African-American voters in Selma. Not long
after her arrival, she was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Before heading to Selma, Liuzzo had lived
in Detroit with her second husband, an official with the Teamsters union, and
her five children (two from a previous marriage). Her decision to go to Alabama
was driven in part by the events of March 7, 1965, in Selma—also known as
“Bloody Sunday.” On that day, approximately 600 civil rights supporters
attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery along Highway 80. The group barely
got started when they were attacked by state and local police officers on the
Edmund Pettus Bridge using clubs and tear gas. Liuzzo had watched the brutal
assault on the protesters in a news broadcast, and felt compelled to find a way
to join the fight for civil rights.
Selma,
Alabama March
Politically and socially active, Liuzzo
was a member of the Detroit chapter of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People. She knew firsthand about the racial injustices
that African Americans often suffered in the South, having spent some of her
youth in Tennessee and Georgia, among other places. Liuzzo may have been aware
of the some of the dangers associated with social activism.
On March 9, 1965, Martin Luther King Jr.
had again attempted to march to Montgomery from Selma with more than 1,500
other civil rights advocates. King decided to return Selma, however, after
encountering the state police along the way. That night in Selma, a white
minister named James Reeb was beaten to death by a group of segregationists.
On March 21, 1965, more than 3,000
marchers led by Martin Luther King Jr. began their trek from Selma to
Montgomery to campaign for voting rights for African Americans in the South.
Unlike previous attempts, activists on this march were protected from outside
interference by U.S. Army and National Guard troops. The group reached
Montgomery on March 25, 1965, and King gave a speech on the steps of the state
capitol building to a crowd of approximately 25,000 people. During the march,
Liuzzo drove supporters between Selma and Montgomery.