As we remember the suffering and death of Jesus during Holy Week, we also remember the death of Viola Liuzzo on March 25, 1965. She was killed by the Ku Klux Klan as she helped marchers returning from the Selma to Montgomery march. She was the only white woman to be killed by the Klan during the modern civil rights movement. Watch the videos below to learn more about one of the martyrs for justice in our country’s recent history and the impact her witness had on her family and our nation. The way of non-violent redemptive suffering that leads to new life is at the heart of God’s love in Jesus and the ongoing call for those who follow Jesus.
On March 25, 1965, Viola Liuzzo, a middle-class white housewife from Detroit, Michigan, was shot and killed in Lowndesboro, Alabama. After watching television footage of on “Bloody Sunday,” Liuzzo drove to Selma, Alabama, to join Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s efforts to organize another march. Hours after the successful Selma-to-Montgomery march ended, Mrs.
Viola Liuzzo, a Detroit housewife and mother of five, was the only white woman the Ku Klux Klan murdered during the civil rights movement. As Mark Strassmann explains, her death helped further the cause of equality and justice leading then President Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act.