The Severity of the Civil Rights Movement and Viola Liuzzo

The Severity of the Civil Rights Movement and Viola Liuzzo
       
          In mid-March of 1965, the Selma to Montgomery marches, including "Bloody Sunday," occurred to demonstrate the severe want for true voting rights. However, the outcome was one that was filled with danger and hostility. For example, state troopers attacked the marchers and demonstrators. To be more specific, eighty men, women, and children were hospitalized. The demonstrations and hostility were televised which was a significant factor in the American public's perception of the ordeal and wish to support voting rights for African-Americans. It allowed many across the country to fully realize the true racial conflict in the United States. A chain of emotion, disgust, and aggression was set off at this time. In response, President Lyndon B. Johnson connected this to Civil War times and wished for progress or an eventual end to this conflict. Of course, an unsettling amount of injuries and deaths of black individuals resulted from these marches and the Civil Rights Movement in general. However, the hostility was so strong during this time that this even resulted in the death of a white woman, Viola Liuzzo. Liuzzo was the only white woman killed in connection to the Civil Rights Movement. The story that surrounds her death simply goes to show the true tension that surrounded the Civil Rights Movement and how increasingly chaotic it got.

          Viola Liuzzo was one of the many Americans who viewed the disgusting acts of "Bloody Sunday" on television. She was already socially active by being part of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Detroit. In response, to the televised images of "Bloody Sunday," Liuzzo wished to help and effort in the cause herself. Liuzzo participated in the march from Selma to Montgomery which began on March 21, 1965. Liuzzo, in addition, helping many of the demonstrators by being a driver for individuals traveling back and forth between Selma and Montgomery. Finally, on March 25, 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. performed a speech at the Montgomery capitol building. During the night that followed, the only white woman's death in connection to the Civil Rights Movement would occur. Liuzzo was driving a teenaged black man, Leroy Moton to Selma via Highway 80. During this trip, someone in a passing vehicle shot and killed her. The passenger, Moton, apparently survived only due to him pretending to be dead after the car drifted into a ditch on the side of the highway. It was later televised who the culprits were and it was revealed that one of four individuals in the passing car was an FBI informant, Gary Thomas Rowe. Strikingly, all four of the individuals were affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan.
          Following Viola Liuzzo's death, much false information began to surface regarding the woman's character. Most intriguing about this was that the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, was supposedly the one instigating such spilling of false information. Such information included how she was supposedly a terrible mother, a horrendous housewife, and in a relationship with the African-American she was driving. A court case still continued to occur which resulted in all the culprits excluding the FBI informant to be sentenced to ten years in prison. However, one of the three men died of unrelated issues before he was sentenced. Rowe, the FBI informant, received immunity from the prosecution. However, the remaining two men both later revealed that Rowe was the individual who actually shot Viola Liuzzo. Due to Rowe's gained immunity, these murder charges did not affect him.
          A bizarre and eerie feel results from learning about the death of Viola Liuzzo. Her death truly shows the severe place that the United States of America was in during this controversial time in the 1960s. With such a shady example filled with the FBI, a sharpshooter, and an attack on a dead white woman's reputation, one can truly see how chaotic the Civil Rights Movement was.

Check out President Johnson's address on Liuzzo: https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-26-1965-statement-arrests-violo-liuzzo-murder
https://www.biography.com/people/viola-gregg-liuzzo-370152
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/12/15/a-white-mother-went-to-alabama-to-fight-for-civil-rights-the-klan-killed-her-for-it/?utm_term=.1f0018956e0b
Image: http://spartacus-educational.com/USAliuzzo.htm