Back فيولا ليوزو Arabic فيولا ليوزو ARZ Viola Liuzzo Danish Viola Gregg Liuzzo German Viola Liuzzo Spanish Viola Liuzzo French Viola Liuzzo Hungarian Viola Liuzzo Italian Viola Liuzzo Occitan Viola Liuzzo Portuguese
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 |
Viola Fauver Liuzzo (née Gregg; April 11, 1925 – March 25, 1965) was an American civil rights activist in Detroit, Michigan. She was known for going to Alabama in March 1965 to support the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights. On March 25, 1965, she was shot dead by three Ku Klux Klan members while driving activists between the cities and transportation.
Also in the pursuit car was an undercover informant working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). His role in this and other events was not revealed until 1978.[1][2] To deflect attention from the FBI, its head J. Edgar Hoover made defamatory claims about Liuzzo.[3][4][5][6]
Three of the men were charged with murder by the state, but not convicted. (The informant Gary T. Rowe was not charged.) The federal government charged the three KKK members with conspiracy to intimidate African Americans under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction era civil rights statute. On December 3, the trio was found guilty by an all-white, all-male jury, a landmark in Southern legal history. They were sentenced to ten years in prison.
As the FBI informant testified in court, he was put in the witness protection program for his safety. He lived until 1998.[7]
In 1983, after learning about the FBI's activities related to the Liuzzo case, her family filed a lawsuit against the FBI for not preventing her death and for damages because of false accusations. The court dismissed the lawsuit.
Viola Liuzzo was given many honors posthumously; her name was inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. Her grandson set up a scholarship in her honor. Wayne State University holds papers in a special collection of the library, associated with her life and death.
- ^ "Viola Liuzzo". Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography. Uua.org. Archived from the original on March 16, 2013. Retrieved March 26, 2013.
- ^ "Government Evils Not To Be Forgotten". JrHighDropOut.com. Archived from the original on March 23, 2022. Retrieved December 13, 2014.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Stanton p53 and p189was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
Blake p201was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Viola Liuzzo". uudb.org. Archived from the original on February 20, 2014. Retrieved February 12, 2016.
- ^ name="news.google.com">Jack Anderson (March 21, 1983)."Hoover smear tactics hurt civil rights case". The Evening News.
- ^ Kaufman, Michael T. (October 4, 1998). "Gary T. Rowe Jr., 64, Who Informed on Klan In Civil Rights Killing, Is Dead". The New York Times. Retrieved October 16, 2014.