Liuzzo, Viola, 1925-1965

Viola Fauver Liuzzo (née Gregg; April 11, 1925 – March 25, 1965) was an American civil rights activist. In March 1965 she drove from her home in Detroit, Michigan to Alabama to support the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights. On March 25 she was shot dead by three members of the Ku Klux Klan while driving activists between the cities. An FBI informant, Gary T. Rowe, was involved in her death. His role in this and other events was not revealed until 1978. To deflect attention from the FBI, its head J. Edgar Hoover made defamatory claims about Liuzzo. Three of her killers (not including Rowe) were charged with murder by the state but not convicted. The federal government charged the three Klan 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. Rowe testified in this case and was put in the witness protection program for his safety. He lived until 1998. 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 suit was ultimately dismissed. 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.