Civil rights & activism
Viola Liuzzo
1925–1965 · civil rights activist
Detroit homemaker and Wayne State student who drove to Alabama for the 1965 Selma march and was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan; a park and statue honor her in Detroit.
- Born
California, Pennsylvania- Died
Lowndes County, Alabama
aged 39- Birth name
- Viola Fauver Gregg
- Detroit years
- 1943–1965
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Viola Gregg came to Michigan in 1941, when her family moved to Ypsilanti for bomber-plant work, and settled in Detroit two years later. She married Teamsters official Anthony Liuzzo, raised five children on the city's northwest side and trained as a medical laboratory assistant at the Carnegie Institute. In 1962 she enrolled part-time at Wayne State University, and in 1964 she joined the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit and the NAACP; she was even arrested for keeping her children home in protest against Michigan's school dropout rules. After the Bloody Sunday attack in Selma she joined a protest at Wayne State on March 16, 1965, then drove alone to Alabama. On March 25, while ferrying marchers, she was shot dead by Klansmen. Her funeral at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church drew Martin Luther King Jr. Detroit later named Viola Liuzzo Park for her and unveiled her statue there in 2019.
Highlights
- Killed by the Ku Klux Klan after the Selma to Montgomery march, March 25, 1965
- Named on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama
- First posthumous honorary doctorate from Wayne State University (2015)
- Statue unveiled in Detroit's Viola Liuzzo Park in 2019
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 4
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Memorial · 2019– (statue)
Viola Liuzzo Park
Neighborhood park on the northwest side named after her; her statue was unveiled here in 2019.
Studied here · 1962–1965
Wayne State University
She studied here part-time, joined a campus protest on March 16, 1965, and received its first posthumous honorary doctorate in 2015; the Reuther Library holds her papers.
Related place · 1964–1965
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit
Status being checked
The congregation she joined in 1964, whose social-justice circle drew her into the civil rights movement.
Related place · 1965
Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church
Status being checked
Detroit church where her funeral was held on March 30, 1965, attended by Martin Luther King Jr.