Overview

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.

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9780820322742

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Reviews

Stanton's fascinating story of a neglected civil rights hero is long overdue. . . . Stanton ably creates a portrait of a woman who was determined to have her life stand for something. --Detroit News Fascinating . . . Should be a required text for anyone who believes prejudice and racism are figments of the black imagination or a thing of the past. --Charlotte Observer I hope that this beautifully realized book introduces this brave and committed woman to Americans of every age. --Fourth Genre An important contribution to civil rights history. --Publishers Weekly Finally--more than thirty years after she was murdered by Klansmen on the Selma-to-Montgomery highway--we have Viola Liuzzo's story. Author Mary Stanton paints a portrait of an extraordinary woman, and at the same time, she provides an intriguing account of her search for the truth about Liuzzo and the circumstances of her death. --Morris Dees Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center A work of careful research and fast-paced narrative. Engrossing, enlightening, and long overdue. --Wyn Craig Wade author of The Fiery Cross Tragic and poignant . . . Mary Stanton superbly details the saga of a true American hero and how her own government sought to defame her. --Mary E. King author of Freedom Song A fascinating story of courage and commitment, dramatically told, as well as a sobering commentary on American government. --Howard Zinn author of A People's History of the United States

Stanton s fascinating story of a neglected civil rights hero is long overdue. . . . Stanton ably creates a portrait of a woman who was determined to have her life stand for something. -- Detroit News

"A fascinating story of courage and commitment, dramatically told, as well as a sobering commentary on American government. --Howard Zinn ""author of A People's History of the United States"" A work of careful research and fast-paced narrative. Engrossing, enlightening, and long overdue. --Wyn Craig Wade ""author of The Fiery Cross"" Finally--more than thirty years after she was murdered by Klansmen on the Selma-to-Montgomery highway--we have Viola Liuzzo's story. Author Mary Stanton paints a portrait of an extraordinary woman, and at the same time, she provides an intriguing account of her search for the truth about Liuzzo and the circumstances of her death. --Morris Dees ""Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center"" Tragic and poignant . . . Mary Stanton superbly details the saga of a true American hero and how her own government sought to defame her. --Mary E. King ""author of Freedom Song"" An important contribution to civil rights history. --Publishers Weekly Fascinating . . . Should be a required text for anyone who believes prejudice and racism are figments of the black imagination or a thing of the past. --Charlotte Observer I hope that this beautifully realized book introduces this brave and committed woman to Americans of every age. --Fourth Genre Stanton's fascinating story of a neglected civil rights hero is long overdue. . . . Stanton ably creates a portrait of a woman who was determined to have her life stand for something. --Detroit News"

A loving tribute to civil rights martyr Viola Liuzzo adds a heartfelt, substantive, and long-neglected page to the movement's historical record. Liuzzo, a white, 39-year-old wife and mother of five from Detroit, was gunned down on a deserted highway while ferrying demonstrators between Montgomery and Selma, Ala., after the 1965 voting rights march. She was killed for traveling alone at night with a black man - a Deep South taboo that caused many, north and south, to claim she got what she deserved. The savageness of the country's unfounded attack on Liuzzo's moral character destroyed her family and ruined her reputation. Many of the rumors of adultery, interracial sex, drug abuse, mental instability, and child abandonment were orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover to deflect criticism from the FBI for ignoring warnings from an informant, who accompanied the killers and was eventually accused of pulling the trigger himself. At the time of Liuzzo's murder, Stanton was a young woman from Queens in the twilight that existed, in those prefeminist days, between high school graduation and marriage. Impressed by Liuzzo's flouting of social convention, Stanton (human resources director for Manhattan's Riverside Church) experienced an awakening that led to college and a stint of social activism in Appalachia. Approaching 50 and puzzled by Liuzzo's status as historical persona non grata (not a single book was written about her in the 20 years since her death), Stanton tackled the project herself - with no agent, no publisher, no advance. It amounts to a personal quest, producing a book that is more spiritual journey than straight autobiography. Stanton admits losing objectivity, but she has nothing to fear: she rights a grievous wrong in rehabilitating Liuzzo's legacy, and her research is thorough and unassailable. Stanton righteously reclaims a broken reputation from history's dustbin. Her Liuzzo is not a saint, but a courageous woman - restless, idealistic, stubborn, principled, and tragically ahead of her time. (Kirkus Reviews)

Stanton's fascinating story of a neglected civil rights hero is long overdue. . . . Stanton ably creates a portrait of a woman who was determined to have her life stand for something. -- Detroit News

Author Information

MARY STANTON is the author of From Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo and Journey toward Justice: Juliette Hampton Morgan and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (both Georgia); and Freedom Walk: Mississippi or Bust. She has taught at the University of Idaho, the College of St. Elizabeth in New Jersey, and Rutgers University.

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