|
Slain
civil
rights
activist
to
receive
posthumous
degree
By COREY
WILLIAMS
Associated
Press
DETROIT
- For 24
years, a
stone
marker
has
stood
along
U.S. 80
in
Alabama's
Lowndes
County,
near the
spot
where
Viola
Gregg
Liuzzo
was
fatally
shot by
Klansmen
while
shuttling
demonstrators
after
the 1965
Selma-to-Montgomery
voting
rights
march.
But in
Liuzzo's
hometown
of
Detroit,
such
public
recognition
is
scarce.
A wooden
marker
bearing
her name
sits on
a fence
beside a
small
neighborhood
playfield;
Last
year, an
exhibit
in
Lansing
included
Liuzzo
among
Michigan
women
who
contributed
significantly
to civil
rights.
That
will
change
on April
10.
Liuzzo's
former
school,
Wayne
State
University,
plans to
award
her an
honorary
doctor
of laws
degree.
It's the
first
posthumous
honorary
degree
in the
145-year-old
school's
history.
Wayne
State
also
will
dedicate
a tree
or green
space
for
Liuzzo.
Liuzzo's
five
children
have
been
invited
to the
ceremony.
Liuzzo's
husband,
Anthony
Liuzzo
Sr.,
died in
1978.
"I
cried,"
Liuzzo's
daughter,
Mary
Liuzzo
Lilleboe,
said of
her
reaction
to Wayne
State's
decision.
"It's
the
highest
honor an
educational
institution
can
bestow
on
someone.
It's the
honor
that's
being
paid to
her.
She's a
civil
rights
giant."
Kim
Trent, a
member
of Wayne
State's
Board of
Governors,
initially
broached
the idea
a decade
ago as
president
of Wayne
State's
black
alumni
organization.
The
school
declined,
citing
its
policy
of not
awarding
posthumous
degrees,
Trent
said.
"The
truth of
the
matter
is that
Viola is
worthy
because
she is
deceased,"
Trent
said.
"She is
a civil
rights
martyr.
I
understood
there
was
something
more
important
at
stake."
Trent
was
elected
to the
same
board in
2012,
and
recently
took
another
run at
recognition
for
Liuzzo.
They
passed
the
recommendation
in
February.
"My
colleagues
were
like,
`Sure,
we
should
do
this,'"
Trent
said.
Liuzzo
was a
nursing
student
at Wayne
State
when she
joined
the
civil
rights
movement.
At the
time of
her
death,
the
white,
39-year-old
mother
also was
a member
of
Detroit's
branch
of the
NAACP.
From her
home,
Liuzzo
watched
televised
news
reports
of
demonstrators
being
beaten
by
police
in Selma
on March
7, 1965,
during
the
first
attempt
to march
to
Montgomery,
a day
that
became
known as
"Bloody
Sunday."
That
march
was
followed
two days
later by
another,
abbreviated
demonstration
led by
the Rev.
Martin
Luther
King Jr.
The Rev.
James
Reeb, a
white
Unitarian
minister
from
Boston,
was
severely
beaten
that
night
and
later
died. An
all-white
jury
acquitted
three
white
men of
murder
charges
in
Reeb's
death.
Just
over two
weeks
after
Reeb's
death,
Liuzzo
too was
dead,
struck
in the
head by
shots
fired
from a
passing
car. Her
black
passenger,
19-year-old
Leroy
Moton,
was
wounded
but
survived
by
pretending
to be
dead.
Four Ku
Klux
Klan
members
were
arrested,
and an
all-white,
all-male
jury
acquitted
three of
them of
murder.
Those
same
three
were
later
convicted
of
federal
charges
in
Liuzzo's
death.
The
fourth
assailant
was
granted
immunity
and
placed
in the
federal
witness
protection
program.
Lilleboe
said she
was 17
when her
mother
quietly
drove to
Alabama
the
weekend
before
the
third
attempt
to march
from
Selma to
Montgomery,
planned
for
March
25.
"If she
saw
wrong
and she
couldn't
right
it, she
took
action,"
said
Lilleboe.
"She
always
told us
the
story
that she
was
treated
badly
because
she was
poor,
but the
`little
black
kids
were
treated
worse.'"
Liuzzo
didn't
reveal
where
she was
going
until
well
after
she
left,
because
she
didn't
want her
husband
to stop
her,
Lilleboe
said.
She did,
however,
contact
her
family
regularly
by
phone.
"She
called
and she
was
rather
jubilant
because
the
march
had made
it,"
Lilleboe
recalled.
"She was
coming
home. My
brothers
picked
up
little
pretend
signs
and
started
marching
around
singing
`We
Shall
Overcome.'
"About
midnight,
dad got
a phone
call and
they
said
`your
wife ...
there
has been
an
accident.'
We knew
she had
been
murdered."
Law
professor
Peter
Hammer,
director
of the
Damon J.
Keith
Center
for
Civil
Rights
at Wayne
State,
said
non-blacks
who
fought
to
dismantle
Jim Crow
segregation
"were
subject
to the
same
vitriol"
aimed at
blacks,
"and in
some
respects
- even
more
so."
"For a
white
woman to
cross
the line
took
even
more
courage
and was
probably
subject
to more
hatred,"
Hammer
said.
Also, he
said,
there is
a
tendency,
in
telling
civil
rights
history,
to
sideline
roles
played
by women
of all
races.
The
Alabama
marker
honoring
Liuzzo
was
erected
by the
Women of
the
Southern
Christian
Leadership
Conference
in 1991.
At the
Civil
Rights
Memorial
in
Montgomery,
Liuzzo
is the
only
white
woman
honored
among
the
martyrs.
After
Liuzzo's
death,
her
family
endured
a cross
burning
and hate
mail at
their
Detroit
home.
Her
children
were
harassed
at
school.
Liuzzo's
husband
hired
armed
guards
for
protection.
A smear
campaign,
engineered
by the
FBI,
hinted
that
Liuzzo
used
drugs
and had
illicit
relationships
with
black
men.
Liuzzo's
family
filed a
$2
million
negligence
claim
against
the
federal
government
in 1977,
saying
the FBI
knew
ahead of
time
that
Liuzzo's
killers
planned
to
commit
violence
and did
nothing
to stop
them.
The
government
refused
to
negotiate
that
claim.
The
family
filed a
lawsuit
that
went to
non-jury
trial in
federal
court in
Ann
Arbor,
Michigan,
in 1983,
and was
dismissed.
"What's
nice
about
what's
taking
place
now is
that
nobody
is
remembering
the
lies,"
Hammer
said.
"People
are
remembering
her life
and
courage."
Lilleboe,
who now
lives in
Oregon,
is proud
of her
mother's
enduring
legacy.
She has
traveled
to Selma
for
"Bloody
Sunday"
commemorations
for the
past 11
years,
including
the 50th
anniversary
earlier
this
month.
"They
embraced
me with
their
whole
hearts
...
because
I'm my
mother's
daughter,"
Lilleboe
said.
"When I
see the
difference
in their
eyes I
am so
proud of
my
mother." |