Viola
Liuzzo, age 39, was killed by four Ku Klux Klan members.
Liuzzo had left her
home in Michigan to go to Selma Alabama to help with the carpooling effort to
transport volunteers and marchers. She had been watching news reports of the marches and, in tears, told her husband she had to go down south and help.
After
dropping off some of the (black) volunteers, Viola’s car was approached by a
car with 4 KKK members, who shot her in the head and shot up her car. She died immediately.
One of the men in the
car was an FBI information and years later, under the Freedom of Information
Act, Viola’s family discovered J. Edgar Hoover himself had begun a smear
campaign against Viola’s character so as to distance the FBI from any blame for
her death. After a mistrial, 3 of the 4 KKK members were found guilty in a
federal court. The informant went into
Witness Protection due to threats from the KKK.
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