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| | | Outdoors Sportsman | Home » » » » From Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo | | | | | | | Description: | | 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.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Mary Stanton | | Paperback:
| 264 pages | | Publisher:
| University of Georgia Press | | Publication Date:
| August 05, 2000 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0820322741 | | Product Width:
| 144.75 centimeters | | Product Height:
| 216.25 centimeters | | Product Weight:
| 0.85 pounds | | Package Length:
| 8.65 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.79 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.82 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.93 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 12 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
 A Reckless InspirationAug 09, 2005
By Yours Truly
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 found the following review helpful:
Dramatized civil and women's rights 1960s styleOct 26, 1999
By Constance Adeyeri
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 found the following review helpful:
 Engaging but incompleteSep 26, 2003
By Dr. Alan Zaremba
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.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
An excellant read for truth-searchersFeb 19, 1999
Like Mary Stanton, I was also curious about Mrs Luizzo, and she stayed in the back of my mind. I am sorry for the loss her family and many other families suffered simply because they wanted to change something that was completely wrong and unjust. I also feel shame on a government who would go so far to make those who were right and decent appear so degrading and immoral and to even allow murder to protect the "status quo" This book is must reading for anyone who really wants to take the blinders off about what really happened during that horrible time. I have recently been given the opportunity to visit parts of Alabama and while the area I visited is very decent, mentally I can still visualize the Alabama of 1965 and understand why it is necessary to leave the Viola Luizzo marker defaced; as the author has stated the struggle isn't over. Thank you Mary Stanton
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Fascinating, well-researched, personally felt biography.Dec 22, 1998
I remember the murder of Viola Liuzzo very well because her son Tommy was in my class at Precious Blood School in Detroit when it happened. We were in 8th grade. I remember the aftermath, although being only 13, I was only marginally aware of the magnitude of the whole event. My mother was one, of many, who asked "what was she doing there when she had 5 kids in Detroit?" Reading Mary Stanton's book took me back to a difficult place and time. She has done her research well and cares about her subject. It was painful reading for me because of what happened to the family and in my furvent hope that I was not one of Tommy's grade school tormentors. A wonderful depiction of a fascinating person and a terrible time in our country's history.
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