I Remember Viola Luizzo

I Mourn Her And The Voting Rights Act For Which She Gave Her Life

L-R Viola Liuzzo and her daughter, Sally | Sally Liuzzo-Prado photo. Surrounded by robed Ku Klux Klansmen and smoking a cigar, Collie Leroy Wilkins listens to Klan attorney Matthew H. Murphy speak to a rally in Dunn, North Carolina, in May 1965. Wilkins was represented by Murphy in his trial for the murder of Detroit civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo. The trial ended in a 10-2 hung jury. UPI. "Bloody Sunday" at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, photo courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Donated by Alabama Media Group. Photo by Spider Martin, Birmingham News.

I watched the Lions-49ers game Sunday night. As a Bills fan, my allegiance was squarely with the Lions, a slowly rising, Lake Erie city. The Lions blew a 17 point lead, setting up a February 11, 2024 Chiefs-Niners Super Bowl. I realize it was just a game, but the loss somehow gutted me.

Upon reflecting on why a Detroit Lions loss should affect me so viscerally, an image of a pretty young mother flashed in my memory. She died in 1965, a few months before I was born.

I remember Viola Liuzzo.

The Murder of Viola Liuzzo

In 1965, Viola Liuzzo, was 39 years old and a mother of five. She was inspired to drive the 800 miles from her Detroit home to Selma, Alabama after witnessing televised footage of hundreds of peaceful protestors being clubbed and tear-gassed by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965. She explained to her husband “it’s everybody’s fight,” and kissed her children goodbye.

For five days, Liuzzo worked for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference‘s (SCLC) transpor…