WHY SELMA |
DEATH | VERDICT | LINKS |
Viola Liuzzo was born on April 11, 1925 in Pennsylvania. As a child she grew up in the states of Tennessee and Georgia.
After a divorce and two
children she met and married Anthony J. Liuzzo and they had three children
together. After she graduated from Wayne State University she became
a medical lab technician.
When Dr. King made a nationwide call for people of all races to come to Selma in support of voter registration Viola decided that since she was a member of the NAACP she would go to support the march.
Also on March 7, 1965 Viola
and her husband were watching the 11o'clock news and saw the first news
clip of the state troopers
attacking the marchers in Selma. She was affected by the murder
of Rev. James Reeb, it was then that she decided go and help.
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Late one night on March 25, 1965, she was driving to Montgomery to pick up some marchers to bring back to Selma. A young black man by the name of LeRoy Moton was one of the riders. He noticed that a car was following them closely. Both cars were racing down the highway at 100 miles per hour. As they were entering Selma the car pulled up next to her, then a Klansman named Collie Wilkins who was sitting in the back seat of the car put his arm out of the window and shot twice and shattered her skull. Also one of the Klansmen riders was an FBI informant named Gary Rowe. The Klansman returned to the wrecked car shining a flashlight to make sure all were dead. While LeRoy pretended to be dead he waited for the Klansmen to leave the car, then he flagged down another car which was carrying civil right workers.Back to top
The three KKK
members Collie Wilkins, Eugene Thomas, and William Eaton were arrested
for the death of Viola Liuzzo. An all-white Alabama jury found the three
men not guilty. President Johnson became outraged and instructed his
officials to arrange for the men to be charged under the 1870 federal
law of conspiring to deprive Viola
Liuzzo of her civil rights. The three KKK men were later found guilty
and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
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http://detnews.com/history/viola/viola.htm
http://www.blackforum.com/Liuzzo.html
http://www.broadview.mccsc.edu/mlk/liuzzo/sld005.htm
http://www.sage.edu/RSC/programs/globcomm/division/students/liuzzo.html
http://foia.fbi.gov/liuzzo.htm
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