Viola Liuzzo
Encyclopedia
Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo (April 11, 1925 – March 25, 1965) was a Unitarian Universalist civil rights
activist from Michigan
, who was murdered by Ku Klux Klan
members after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches
in Alabama
. One of the Klansmen in the car from which the shots were fired was a Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) informant.
Liuzzo's name is one of those inscribed on a civil rights memorial
in the state capital
. She died at the age of 39.
, and moved with her family to Chattanooga, Tennessee
at the age of six. After just one year of high school, she dropped out, was married in 1941 at 16, then divorced within a year. In 1943, she married George Argyris, with this marriage lasting seven years and producing two children. She later married Anthony Liuzzo, a Teamsters
union business agent.
While raising a family that added three more children, Liuzzo sought to return to school, and attended the Carnegie Institute
in Detroit, Michigan
. She then enrolled part-time at Wayne State University
in 1962, and was considered an average student who was academically still in her freshman year at the time of her death.
on March 7, 1965 at the Edmund Pettus Bridge
which became known as "Bloody Sunday." Nine days later, she took part in a protest at Wayne State, then called her husband to tell him she would be traveling to Selma
, saying that the struggle "was everybody's fight."
After the march concluded on March 25, Liuzzo, assisted by Leroy Moton, a 19-year-old African American
, helped drive local marchers home in her 1963 Oldsmobile
. As they were driving along Route 80, a car tried to force them off the road. A car with four Klan members then pulled up alongside Liuzzo's car and shot directly at her, hitting her twice in the head, killing her instantly. Her car veered into a ditch and crashed into a fence.
Although Moton was covered with blood, the bullets had missed him. He lay motionless when the Klansmen reached the car to check on their victims. After that car left, he began running for the next half hour, and eventually flagged down a truck driven by Rev. Leon Riley that was bringing civil rights workers back to Selma.
Liuzzo's funeral was held at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic church on March 30 in Detroit, with many prominent members of both the civil rights movement and government there to pay their respects. Included in this group were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins
; Congress on Racial Equality national leader James Farmer
; Michigan lieutenant governor William G. Milliken; Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa
; and United Auto Workers
president Walter Reuther
.
Less than two weeks after her death, a charred cross
was found in front of four Detroit homes, including the Liuzzo residence.
Lyndon Johnson
appeared personally on national television to announce their arrest.
The remaining three suspects were indicted for Liuzzo's death on April 22, with defense lawyer Matt Murphy quickly attempting to have the case dismissed on the grounds that President Johnson had violated the suspects' civil rights when he named them in his televised announcement. Murphy also indicated he would call Johnson as a witness during the upcoming trial.
On May 3 an all-white jury was selected for Wilkins' trial, with Rowe the key witness. Three days later, Murphy made blatantly racist comments during his final arguments, including calling Liuzzo a "white nigger," in order to sway the jury. The tactic was successful enough to result in a mistrial the following day (10-2 in favor of conviction), and on May 10, the three accused killers were part of a Klan parade which closed with a standing ovation for them.
Before the new trial got underway, Murphy was killed in an automobile accident, on August 20, when he fell asleep while driving and crashed into a gas tank truck. The former mayor of Birmingham, Alabama
Art Hanes
agreed to take over representation for all three defendants one week later. Hanes was a staunch segregationist who served as mayor during the tumultuous 1963 period in which police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor used fire hoses on African American protesters.
After another all-white jury
was selected on October 20, the end result two days later saw the panel take less than two hours to acquit Wilkins in Liuzzo's slaying.
The next phase of the lengthy process began when a federal trial charged the defendants with conspiracy under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act
, a Reconstruction civil rights statute. The charges did not specifically refer to Liuzzo's murder, but on December 3, the trio was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
While out on appeal, Wilkins and Thomas were each found guilty of firearms violations and sent to jail for those crimes. During this period, the January 15, 1966 edition of the Birmingham News published an ad offering Liuzzo's bullet-ridden car for sale. Asking $3,500, the ad read, "Do you need a crowd-getter? I have a 1963 Oldsmobile two-door in which Mrs. Viola Liuzzo was killed. Bullet holes and everything intact. Ideal to bring in crowds."
Eaton, the only defendant who remained out of jail, died of a heart attack on March 9. Thomas was the only remaining member of the trio who had not gone to trial, with that case getting underway on September 26, 1966. The prosecution built a strong circumstantial case in the trial that included an FBI ballistics expert testifying that the bullet removed from the woman's brain was fired from a revolver owned by Thomas. Two witnesses testified they had seen Wilkins drinking beer at a VFW
Hall near Birmingham, 125 miles from the murder scene, an hour or less after Liuzzo was shot. Despite the presence of eight African Americans on the jury, Thomas was acquitted of murder the following day after just 90 minutes of deliberations. State attorney general Richmond Flowers, Sr. criticized the verdict, deriding the black members of the panel, who had been carefully screened, as "Uncle Tom
s."
On April 27, 1967, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
in New Orleans upheld the convictions of the surviving defendants, with Thomas serving six years in prison for the crime.
Due to threats from Klan, both before and after his testimony, Gary Thomas Rowe went into the federal witness protection program. See Rowe v. Griffin, 676 F.2d 524 (1982).
also ordered investigation immediately after the death.
Shortly after his retirement in 1975, Anthony Liuzzo, who never remarried, was one of three suburban Detroit men charged with seven counts of conspiracy to burn down a supermarket for insurance money. He died on December 10, 1978.
On December 28, 1977 the Liuzzo family, filed a lawsuit
against the FBI, charging that Rowe, as an employee of the FBI, had failed to prevent Liuzzo's death and had in effect conspired in the murder. Then, on July 5, 1979, the American Civil Liberties Union
, filed another lawsuit on behalf of the family.
Rowe was indicted in 1978 and tried for his involvement in the murder, but the first trial ended in a hung jury
, and the second trial ended in his acquittal. See Rowe v. Griffin, 497 F. Supp. 610 (1980) for a complete description of the case.
On May 27, 1983, a judge rejected the claims in the Liuzzo family lawsuit, saying there was "no evidence the FBI was in any type of joint venture with Rowe or conspiracy against Mrs. Liuzzo. Rowe's presence in the car was the principal reason why the crime was solved so quickly." In August 1983, the FBI was awarded US$79,873 in court costs, but costs were later reduced to $3,645 after the ACLU appealed on behalf of the family. See Liuzzo v. US, 565 F. Supp. 640 (1983).
The family's oldest son, Thomas, moved to Alabama in 1978 and legally changed his last name to Lee in 1982 after constant questions about whether he was related to the civil rights martyr.
Liuzzo was the subject of a 2004 documentary Home of the Brave
. She was featured in "Free at Last (part 3)." Her murder was dramatized in Episode 2 of the King miniseries.
In 1991, civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo was honored by the Women of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with a marker on the highway (Highway 80) where she was murdered in the Ku Klux Klan attack in 1965.
In 2008, Liuzzo's story was memorialized in a song, "Color Blind Angel" by the late blues singer Robin Rogers.
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
activist from Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, who was murdered by Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
members after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches
Selma to Montgomery marches
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three marches in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement. They grew out of the voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama, launched by local African-Americans who formed the Dallas County Voters League...
in Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
. One of the Klansmen in the car from which the shots were fired was a Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) informant.
Liuzzo's name is one of those inscribed on a civil rights memorial
Civil Rights Memorial
The Civil Rights Memorial is a memorial in Montgomery, Alabama to 40 people who died in the struggle for the equal and integrated treatment of all people, regardless of race, during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The memorial is sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center.The...
in the state capital
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...
. She died at the age of 39.
Family life
Viola Gregg was born in California, PennsylvaniaCalifornia, Pennsylvania
California is a borough in Washington County, Pennsylvania, United States, along the Monongahela River. The population was 5,274 as of the 2000 census. California is the home of California University of Pennsylvania. Founded in 1849, the borough was named for the territory of California following...
, and moved with her family to Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
at the age of six. After just one year of high school, she dropped out, was married in 1941 at 16, then divorced within a year. In 1943, she married George Argyris, with this marriage lasting seven years and producing two children. She later married Anthony Liuzzo, a Teamsters
Teamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors....
union business agent.
While raising a family that added three more children, Liuzzo sought to return to school, and attended the Carnegie Institute
Carnegie Institute
Carnegie Institute can refer to:*Carnegie Institute, operator of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania*Carnegie Institution for Science , Washington, D.C....
in Detroit, Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
. She then enrolled part-time at Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
in 1962, and was considered an average student who was academically still in her freshman year at the time of her death.
The murder and funeral
Liuzzo was horrified by the images of the aborted marchSelma to Montgomery marches
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three marches in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement. They grew out of the voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama, launched by local African-Americans who formed the Dallas County Voters League...
on March 7, 1965 at the Edmund Pettus Bridge
Edmund Pettus Bridge
The Edmund Pettus Bridge is a bridge that carries U.S. Highway 80 across the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama. Built in 1940, it is named for Edmund Winston Pettus, a former Confederate brigadier general and U.S. Senator from Alabama. The bridge is a steel through arch bridge with a central span of...
which became known as "Bloody Sunday." Nine days later, she took part in a protest at Wayne State, then called her husband to tell him she would be traveling to Selma
Selma, Alabama
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama, United States, located on the banks of the Alabama River. The population was 20,512 at the 2000 census....
, saying that the struggle "was everybody's fight."
After the march concluded on March 25, Liuzzo, assisted by Leroy Moton, a 19-year-old African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
, helped drive local marchers home in her 1963 Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile was a brand of American automobile produced for most of its existence by General Motors. It was founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897. In its 107-year history, it produced 35.2 million cars, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan factory...
. As they were driving along Route 80, a car tried to force them off the road. A car with four Klan members then pulled up alongside Liuzzo's car and shot directly at her, hitting her twice in the head, killing her instantly. Her car veered into a ditch and crashed into a fence.
Although Moton was covered with blood, the bullets had missed him. He lay motionless when the Klansmen reached the car to check on their victims. After that car left, he began running for the next half hour, and eventually flagged down a truck driven by Rev. Leon Riley that was bringing civil rights workers back to Selma.
Liuzzo's funeral was held at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic church on March 30 in Detroit, with many prominent members of both the civil rights movement and government there to pay their respects. Included in this group were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins
Roy Wilkins
Roy Wilkins was a prominent civil rights activist in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins' most notable role was in his leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ....
; Congress on Racial Equality national leader James Farmer
James L. Farmer, Jr.
James Leonard Farmer, Jr. was a civil rights activist and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He was the initiator and organizer of the 1961 Freedom Ride, which eventually led to the desegregation of inter-state transportation in the United States.In 1942, Farmer co-founded the Committee...
; Michigan lieutenant governor William G. Milliken; Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa was an American labor union leader....
; and United Auto Workers
United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers , is a labor union which represents workers in the United States and Puerto Rico, and formerly in Canada. Founded as part of the Congress of Industrial...
president Walter Reuther
Walter Reuther
Walter Philip Reuther was an American labor union leader, who made the United Automobile Workers a major force not only in the auto industry but also in the Democratic Party in the mid 20th century...
.
Less than two weeks after her death, a charred cross
Cross burning
Cross burning or cross lighting is a practice widely associated with the Ku Klux Klan, although the historical practice long predates the Klan's inception...
was found in front of four Detroit homes, including the Liuzzo residence.
Arrest and legal proceedings
The four Klan members in the car, Collie Wilkins (21), FBI informant Gary Rowe (34), William Eaton (41) and Eugene Thomas (42) were quickly arrested: within 24 hours PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Lyndon Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
appeared personally on national television to announce their arrest.
The remaining three suspects were indicted for Liuzzo's death on April 22, with defense lawyer Matt Murphy quickly attempting to have the case dismissed on the grounds that President Johnson had violated the suspects' civil rights when he named them in his televised announcement. Murphy also indicated he would call Johnson as a witness during the upcoming trial.
On May 3 an all-white jury was selected for Wilkins' trial, with Rowe the key witness. Three days later, Murphy made blatantly racist comments during his final arguments, including calling Liuzzo a "white nigger," in order to sway the jury. The tactic was successful enough to result in a mistrial the following day (10-2 in favor of conviction), and on May 10, the three accused killers were part of a Klan parade which closed with a standing ovation for them.
Before the new trial got underway, Murphy was killed in an automobile accident, on August 20, when he fell asleep while driving and crashed into a gas tank truck. The former mayor of Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
Art Hanes
Art Hanes
Arthur J. Hanes served as mayor of Birmingham, Alabama between 1961 and 1963, a tumultuous time that saw the city become a focal point in the burgeoning African-American Civil Rights Movement...
agreed to take over representation for all three defendants one week later. Hanes was a staunch segregationist who served as mayor during the tumultuous 1963 period in which police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor used fire hoses on African American protesters.
After another all-white jury
All-white jury
An "all-white jury" is an American political term used to describe a jury in a criminal trial, or grand jury investigation, composed only of white people, with the implication that the deliberations may not be fair and unbiased...
was selected on October 20, the end result two days later saw the panel take less than two hours to acquit Wilkins in Liuzzo's slaying.
The next phase of the lengthy process began when a federal trial charged the defendants with conspiracy under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act
Civil Rights Act of 1871
The Civil Rights Act of 1871, , enacted April 20, 1871, is a federal law in force in the United States. The Act was originally enacted a few years after the American Civil War, along with the 1870 Force Act. One of the chief reasons for its passage was to protect southern blacks from the Ku Klux...
, a Reconstruction civil rights statute. The charges did not specifically refer to Liuzzo's murder, but on December 3, the trio was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
While out on appeal, Wilkins and Thomas were each found guilty of firearms violations and sent to jail for those crimes. During this period, the January 15, 1966 edition of the Birmingham News published an ad offering Liuzzo's bullet-ridden car for sale. Asking $3,500, the ad read, "Do you need a crowd-getter? I have a 1963 Oldsmobile two-door in which Mrs. Viola Liuzzo was killed. Bullet holes and everything intact. Ideal to bring in crowds."
Eaton, the only defendant who remained out of jail, died of a heart attack on March 9. Thomas was the only remaining member of the trio who had not gone to trial, with that case getting underway on September 26, 1966. The prosecution built a strong circumstantial case in the trial that included an FBI ballistics expert testifying that the bullet removed from the woman's brain was fired from a revolver owned by Thomas. Two witnesses testified they had seen Wilkins drinking beer at a VFW
VFW
VFW may refer to:*Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke*Veterans of Foreign Wars*Veterans of Future Wars*Video for Windows*VFW Parkway...
Hall near Birmingham, 125 miles from the murder scene, an hour or less after Liuzzo was shot. Despite the presence of eight African Americans on the jury, Thomas was acquitted of murder the following day after just 90 minutes of deliberations. State attorney general Richmond Flowers, Sr. criticized the verdict, deriding the black members of the panel, who had been carefully screened, as "Uncle Tom
Uncle Tom
Uncle Tom is a derogatory term for a person who perceives themselves to be of low status, and is excessively subservient to perceived authority figures; particularly a black person who behaves in a subservient manner to white people....
s."
On April 27, 1967, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* Eastern District of Louisiana* Middle District of Louisiana...
in New Orleans upheld the convictions of the surviving defendants, with Thomas serving six years in prison for the crime.
Due to threats from Klan, both before and after his testimony, Gary Thomas Rowe went into the federal witness protection program. See Rowe v. Griffin, 676 F.2d 524 (1982).
Aftermath
It is surmised by many (civil rights activists, Liuzzo's children, etc.) that Liuzzo's death helped with the passing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which removed barriers to voting such as literacy tests and poll taxes. President Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
also ordered investigation immediately after the death.
Shortly after his retirement in 1975, Anthony Liuzzo, who never remarried, was one of three suburban Detroit men charged with seven counts of conspiracy to burn down a supermarket for insurance money. He died on December 10, 1978.
On December 28, 1977 the Liuzzo family, filed a lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
against the FBI, charging that Rowe, as an employee of the FBI, had failed to prevent Liuzzo's death and had in effect conspired in the murder. Then, on July 5, 1979, the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
, filed another lawsuit on behalf of the family.
Rowe was indicted in 1978 and tried for his involvement in the murder, but the first trial ended in a hung jury
Hung jury
A hung jury or deadlocked jury is a jury that cannot, by the required voting threshold, agree upon a verdict after an extended period of deliberation and is unable to change its votes due to severe differences of opinion.- England and Wales :...
, and the second trial ended in his acquittal. See Rowe v. Griffin, 497 F. Supp. 610 (1980) for a complete description of the case.
On May 27, 1983, a judge rejected the claims in the Liuzzo family lawsuit, saying there was "no evidence the FBI was in any type of joint venture with Rowe or conspiracy against Mrs. Liuzzo. Rowe's presence in the car was the principal reason why the crime was solved so quickly." In August 1983, the FBI was awarded US$79,873 in court costs, but costs were later reduced to $3,645 after the ACLU appealed on behalf of the family. See Liuzzo v. US, 565 F. Supp. 640 (1983).
The family's oldest son, Thomas, moved to Alabama in 1978 and legally changed his last name to Lee in 1982 after constant questions about whether he was related to the civil rights martyr.
Liuzzo was the subject of a 2004 documentary Home of the Brave
Home of the Brave (2004 film)
Home of the Brave is a 2004 film directed by Paola di Florio. It is a documentary about Viola Liuzzo, a white civil rights activist who was murdered in 1965 in Selma, Alabama, USA, as she campaigned for black suffrage....
. She was featured in "Free at Last (part 3)." Her murder was dramatized in Episode 2 of the King miniseries.
In 1991, civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo was honored by the Women of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with a marker on the highway (Highway 80) where she was murdered in the Ku Klux Klan attack in 1965.
In 2008, Liuzzo's story was memorialized in a song, "Color Blind Angel" by the late blues singer Robin Rogers.
External links
- Viola Liuzzo biography at the Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography
- Documentary Film "Home of the Brave"
- Viola Liuzzo - civil rights activist assasinated by KKK in 1965
- A detailed history from the Detroit News web site archive.org
- Viola Liuzzo article, Encyclopedia of Alabama
- FBI file on Viola Liuzzo