In 1965 Viola Liuzzo heeded the call of Martin Luther King, Jr. and traveled from Detroit, Michigan to Selma, Alabama to assist the Selma to Montgomery March. Thirty-nine (39) years old and the mother of five, Viola was horrified seeing, on television, marchers beaten on the Edmond Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965. She called her husband, Anthony Liuzzo — a Teamsters Union business agent — to tell him she was leaving for Alabama because the civil rights movement “was everybody’s fight.” She drove her 1963 Oldsmobile 800 miles to Selma and volunteered with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She was tasked with welcoming and transporting the thousands of marchers that arrived at area airports, train and bus stations. Viola’s car “helped many a weary marcher.” She had only been there a week when, on the night of March 25, 1965, a car tried to run her off the road on Route 80 while driving with another volunteer — Leroy Moton, a 19-year old Black man. After dropping passengers in Selma, she and Moton headed back to Montgomery. As they were getting gas at a local filling station, they were subjected to racist and abusive taunts. While stopped at a red light, a car with four men who were members of the local Ku Klux Klan, pulled up alongside her. Viola tried to outrun them but, overtaking her car, they shot directly at her, mortally wounding her twice in the head. Her car veered into a ditch and crashed into a fence.
Although covered with blood, Leroy Moton was not hit. When the Klansmen reached the car to check on their victims, he lay motionless. He flagged down a truck driven by Rev. Leon Riley, who was also shuttling civil rights demonstrators between Selma and Montgomery. The next day President Lyndon Johnson went on television to announce the arrests of the four KKK members. Viola Liuzzo’s funeral was held at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Detroit. In attendance were civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, Michigan Lt. Gov. William G. Milliken and union presidents Jimmy Hoffa and Walther Reuther. Less than two weeks after her death, a charred cross was found in front of four Detroit homes, including the Liuzzo residence. The murder of Viola Liuzzo helped spark the passage of the Voting Rights Act just five months later.
If she had something to say, she said it.If she felt something needed to be done, she did it. Her family and Leroy Moton remember. CBS Evening News video; 3 min. Click here.
Viola Liuzzo and the Teamsters In “The Voting Rights Martyr who Divided America”(CNN, 2/28/2013) John Blake interviewed a leading participant in the Selma voting rights campaign who remembers seeing Viola standing up in church with a check in her hand. “She brought it up on the stage,” he said, “and gave Hosea Williams a check from her husband’s union. On the way back, there was a big cheer and applause. She was just beaming.”
July 23, 2019. Detroit, Michigan. Sally Liuzzo-Prado (front in blue) reacts during the unveiling of the Viola Liuzzo Statue by sculptor Austen Brantley. The memorial shows her mother, Viola Liuzzo, walking barefoot — with shoes in one hand — and a Ku Klux Klan hood on the ground behind her. Photo: Kathleen Galligan, Detroit Free Press via AP.
Viola Liuzzo Memorial Marker U.S. Highway 80, about 20 miles east of Selma, Alabama
Sources, from which I summarized, paraphased or quoted directly: Wikipedia;“Statue of slain civil rights activist dedicated in Detroit,” by Kathleen Galligan (The Seattle Times, 7/24/2019); Viola Liuzzo Memorial Marker (Encyclopedia of Alabama); “A white mother went to Alabama to fight for civil rights. The Klan killed her for it,” by Donna Britt (Washington Post, 12/15/2017); Encyclopedia of Detroit; “The voting rights martyr who divided America,” by John Blake, CNN (2/28/2013)
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