From Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo [Paperback]

Mary Stanton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2000

More than thirty years after the murder of Viola Liuzzo by the Ku Klux Klan, she remains an enigma. Some saw her as a dedicated civil rights worker, others as a troubled housewife. Some thought she was a victim of random violence and government conspiracy, while others thought she was an unfit mother who got what she deserved.

From Selma to Sorrow is the first full-length biography of the only white woman honored at the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery. Born and reared in the South, Liuzzo moved to Detroit as an adult. At the time of her death she was married to a high-ranking Teamster and had five children. While a part-time student at Wayne State University she became involved in civil rights protests and decided to participate in a voting rights march in Selma, Alabama. On March 25, 1965, Liuzzo and a young black man named Leroy Moton were on their way from Selma to Montgomery after the march. Klansmen followed Liuzzo's car along Highway 80 for twenty miles, then pulled alongside and fired shots. Liuzzo was killed instantly and Moton, covered with her blood, escaped by pretending to be dead when the killers returned.

Because this group of Klansmen included an FBI informant, Liuzzo lost her life in more ways than one. To deflect attention and to cover up his recklessness in permitting a known violent racist to work undercover during the march, J. Edgar Hoover crafted a malicious public relations campaign that unfairly portrayed Liuzzo as an unstable woman who abandoned her family to stir up trouble in the South. The years of unrelenting accusations, innuendos, and lies nearly destroyed her husband and five children.

In From Selma to Sorrow Mary Stanton searches for the truth about Liuzzo's life and death, using extensive interviews, public records, and FBI case files to tell a startling story of murder, betrayal, and passion.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A suburban Detroit housewife and part-time student at Wayne State University, Viola Liuzzo joined the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in March 1965. Driving along a deserted highway with a young black man the night of the march, she was shot and killed, becoming, briefly, a martyr of the civil rights movement before questions about her character and motives clouded her memory. What kind of a mother would leave young children and run the risk of violence in the South? What was she doing alone in her car with a black man? Through her research, freelance writer Stanton found reason to believe that the accusations against Liuzzo were trumped up by the FBI to divert attention from the agency's own dubious role in Liuzzo's murder. A paid FBI informer was in the car that forced Liuzzo off the road, and he was later accused of being the shooter as well. Stanton traces her interest in Liuzzo back to the night of the murder, when the author was in high school. She compares her life with Liuzzo's, chronicling both women's dissatisfaction with traditional female roles. In re-creating her subject's life, Stanton relies on media coverage and personal interviews, and while her speculations on Liuzzo's thoughts and the FBI's role in the murder are not verifiable, the author provides an all-too-likely scenario for a government conspiracy. In writing about Liuzzo's activism, Stanton herself has made an important contribution to civil rights history. 23 illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Freelance writer Stanton has produced the first full-length adult biography of Viola Liuzzo, a white Civil Rights worker who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1965, just a few hours after the Selma voting rights march ended. Strangely, instead of being considered a martyr for the Civil Rights cause, Liuzzo was almost immediately vilified as a troubled, interfering Northerner whose "proper" place should have been home tending her five children. Eventually, she was memorialized in the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery (the only white woman so recognized) and also at the site where she was shot. But as Stanton makes clear, justice was never served in punishing her killer. This investigation of a neglected figure and her stirring times is appropriate for academic and public library collections.?Patricia A. Beaber, Trenton State Coll. Lib., Lawrenceville, NJ
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press (August 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0820322741
• ISBN-13: 978-0820322742
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #116,444 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Reckless Inspiration, August 9, 2005

By 

Yours Truly (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: From Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo (Paperback)

Only one of the many people who gave their lives for racial justice in the 1960s was a white woman. Several reasons for this become clear in Mary Stanton's moving portrait of the life of Viola Liuzzo.

In an age when conformity was considered a virtue, especially for white women, Viola Liuzzo was not a conformist. A spirited woman who married the first time as a teenager, Liuzzo was at the time of her death attending Wayne State and the mother of five children. Her best friend was African American, when that was considered peculiar. Her husband was a Teamster, but he could not control her. When none of the other students who agreed to accompany Liuzzo to Alabama at Martin Luther King's invitation showed up, she went alone. The March from Selma to Montgomery was hours finished when she and a young black male passenger in her car were shot. He survived, just barely. She did not.

For all Liuzzo's unconventionality, nothing prepared her friends and family for the drubbing her reputation was given by the government. Overnight, she went from a brave, unselfish freedom fighter to a slut who abandoned her children, possibly used drugs and was married to the mob. The information leaked to the press was the invention of the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover had his own reputation to protect, and that of an informant inside the Ku Klux Klan, who contributed to Liuzzo's death.

Stanton, who has since written several portraits of whites caught up in the Movement , shows that it was these slurs on Liuzzo's reputation, rather than her death, that inflicted the deepest wounds on her family. She was killed twice-once by a bullet and again by the ugliest kind of slander.

While Congress debates whether or not the Voting Rights Act should be renewed, this book reminds us that our government of, by and for the people has often colluded with the worst among us to keep down the weakest. It's worth remembering.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dramatized civil and women's rights 1960s style, October 25, 1999

By 

Constance Adeyeri (Takoma Park, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo (Hardcover)

This book took priority over my agenda, a page turner of the first order. Getting the real story of Viola Liuzzo was on the back burner of my own mind so long I didn't remember it was there until Stanton's book caught my attention at the library. The book is in layers, with the story of getting the story as telling of the 1990s as the unfolding of what was actually happening in Selma and America in the 1960s. The role of women and political correctness 1960s style all over the U.S.A. as well as in Selma rings true. The story of the civil rights movement in the context of the South is absolutely girpping.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Engaging but incomplete, September 26, 2003

By 

Dr. Alan Zaremba (Auburndale, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo (Paperback)

Like the author I was stunned in 1965 when I heard of the Liuzzo murder and the trial of Collie Leroy Wilkins. The prologue in Stanton's book was engaging and beautifully written. However, after the prologue the book is not as compelling. Ms. Stanton clearly suggests that Rowe was the murderer, but leaves some large questions unanswered. Where is Leroy Moton? If Moton testified that Wilkins was the murderer why dismiss Moton's testimony because of lie detector tests administered to Wilkins? I wonder if Rowe committed the crime myself, but I don't see evidence in the book to support the author's perspective. Even if Rowe did commit the murder, that does not exonerate Wilkins or Murphy. Also, the book seemed unevenly documented. In some cases there were footnotes from newspapers that were either unnecessary or provided insufficient support. In other cases claims were made without any documentation.

What is good about this book is Ms. Stanton's passion. What it lacks is structure and support for some of the claims contained therein. Still, I am glad I read the book and glad she wrote it.