Viola Liuzzo
| Viola Liuzzo | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Viola Fauver Gregg April 11, 1925 California, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Died | March 25, 1965 (aged 39) Selma, Alabama, United States |
| Cause of death | Murder by KKK |
| Occupation | Civil rights activist |
| Children | 5 |
Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo (April 11, 1925 – March 25, 1965) was a Unitarian Universalist civil rights activist from Michigan. In March 1965 Liuzzo, then a housewife and mother of five with a history of local activism, 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. Driving back from a trip shuttling fellow activists to the Montgomery airport, she was shot dead by members of the Ku Klux Klan. She was 39 years old.
One of the four Klansmen in the car from which the shots were fired was Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant Gary Thomas Rowe. Rowe testified against the shooters and was moved and given an assumed name by the FBI. The FBI later leaked what were purported to be salacious details about Liuzzo which were never proved or substantiated in any way.
In addition to other honors, Liuzzo's name is today inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama created by Maya Lin.
Liuzzo was born Viola Fauver Gregg on April 11, 1925, in the small town of California, Pennsylvania, the elder daughter of Eva Wilson, a teacher, and Heber Ernest Gregg, a coal miner and World War I veteran. He left school in the eighth grade but taught himself to read. Her mother, Eva Wilson Gregg, had a teaching certificate from the University of Pittsburgh. The couple had one other daughter, Rose Mary, in 1930. While on the job, Heber's right hand was blown off in a mine explosion, and, during the Great Depression, the Greggs became solely dependent on Eva’s income. Work was very hard to come by for Mrs. Gregg, as she could only pick up sporadic, short-term, teaching positions. The family descended further into poverty and decided to move from Georgia to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Eva Gregg found a teaching position, when Viola was six.
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