Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo (April 11, 1925-March 25, 1965), a Unitarian Universalist committed to work for education and economic justice, gave her life for the cause of civil rights.
The 39-year-old mother of five was murdered by white supremacists after her participation in the protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Gary Thomas Rowe was a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant and a member of the Klux Klan (KKK). According to his court testimony, events transpired as follows.
After the passengers were delivered, he and three other members of a KKK "missionary squad", Collie Leroy Wilkins, Jr., William Orville Eaton, and Eugene Thomas, spotted Liuzzo and a black protestant stopped at a traffic light in Selma.
They followed her car for twenty miles. While she attempted to outrun her pursuers, she sang at the top of her lungs, "We Shall Overcome."
About half way between Selma and Montgomery the four men pulled their car up next to hers and shot at her. Liuzzo was killed instantly. Her car rolled into a ditch. The protestan escaped injury.
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