Viola Liuzzo
Viola Fauver Liuzzo (née Gregg; April 11, 1925 – March 25, 1965) was an American civil rights activist. In March 1965, Liuzzo heeded the call of Martin Luther King Jr. and traveled from Detroit, Michigan, to Selma, Alabama, in the wake of the Bloody Sunday attempt at marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Liuzzo participated in the successful Selma to Montgomery marches and helped with coordination and logistics. At the age of 39, while driving back from a trip shuttling fellow activists to the Montgomery airport, she was fatally hit by shots fired from a pursuing car containing Ku Klux Klan members Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr., William Orville Eaton, Eugene Thomas, and Gary Thomas Rowe, the last of whom was actually an undercover informant working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Viola Liuzzo | |
|---|---|
Picture of Gregg, 1949 | |
| Born | Viola Fauver Gregg April 11, 1925 California, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | March 25, 1965 (aged 39) Selma, Alabama, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Assassination (gunshot wounds) |
| Resting place | Holy Sepulchre Cemetery Southfield, Michigan, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Housewife, civil rights activist |
| Children | 5 |
Although the State of Alabama was unable to secure a murder conviction, Wilkins, Eaton, and Thomas were charged in federal court with conspiracy to intimidate African Americans under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction civil rights statute. On December 3, the trio was found guilty by an all-white, all-male jury, and were sentenced to ten years in prison, a landmark in Southern legal history.
Rowe testified that Wilkins had fired two shots into Liuzzo on the order of Thomas, and was placed in the witness protection program by the FBI. In an effort to deflect attention from having employed Rowe as an informant, the FBI produced disinformation for politicians and the press, stating that Liuzzo was a member of the Communist Party, heroin addict, and had abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African-Americans involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Liuzzo's involvement in the civil rights movement was scrutinized and she was condemned by various racist organizations.
In 1983, the Liuzzo family filed a lawsuit against the FBI after learning about the FBI's activities, but the suit was dismissed.
In addition to other honors, Liuzzo's name is today inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, created by Maya Lin.