Liuzzo was born Viola Fauver Gregg on April 1, 1925, in the small town of California, Pennsylvania, the elder daughter of Eva Wilson, a teacher, and Heber Ernest Gregg, a coal miner and World War I veteran. He left school in the eighth grade but taught himself to read. Her mother, Eva Wilson Gregg, had a teaching certificate from the University of Pittsburgh.
Selma
In February 1965, a night demonstration for voting rights at the Marion, Alabama courthouse turned violent. State troopers clubbed marchers and beat and shot a 26-year-old African American named Jimmie Lee Jackson, who later died. His death spurred on the fight for civil rights in Selma, Alabama. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) scheduled a protest march for Sunday, March 7, 1965. Governor George Wallace banned the march, but the ban was ignored. Six hundred marchers headed for the arched Edmund Pettus Bridge that crossed the Alabama River. As the protesters reached the crest of the bridge, they saw a terrifying sight on the other side: state troopers armed with clubs, whips, and tear gas, and a sheriff's posse on horseback. When told to stop and disperse the marchers refused. The troopers advanced on the marchers, clubbing and whipping them, fracturing bones and gashing heads. Seventeen people were hospitalized on the day later called "Bloody Sunday".  Liuzzo was horrified by the images of the aborted march on Bloody Sunday. A second march took place March 9. Troopers, police, and marchers confronted each other at the county end of the bridge, but when the troopers stepped aside to let them pass, King led the marchers back to the church. He was obeying a federal injunction while seeking protection from federal court for the march. That night, a white group beat and murdered civil rights activist James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Boston, who had come to Selma to march with the second group. Many other clergy and sympathizers from across the country also gathered for the second march.  On March 16, Liuzzo took part in a protest at Wayne State. She then called her husband to tell him she would be traveling to Selma after hearing the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. call for people of all faiths to come and help, saying that the struggle "was everybody's fight." Leaving her children in the care of family and friends she contacted the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who took her on and tasked her with delivering aid to various locations, welcoming and recruiting volunteers and transporting volunteers and marchers to and from airports, bus terminals and train stations, for which she volunteered the use of her car, a 1963 Oldsmobile.  On March 21, 1965 more than 3,000 people began the third march, including blacks, whites, doctors, nurses, working-class people, priests, nuns, rabbis, homemakers, students, actors, and farmers. Many famous people participated, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Ralph Bunche, Coretta Scott King, Ralph Abernathy, and Andrew Young. It took five days for the protesters to reach their goal. Liuzzo marched the first full day and returned to Selma for the night. That Wednesday, March 24, she rejoined the march four miles from the end, where a "Night of the Stars" celebration was held the City of St. Jude with performances by many popular entertainers of the day, including Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joan Baez, and Dick Gregory. Liuzzo helped at the first aid station. On Thursday, Liuzzo and other marchers reached the state capitol building, with a Confederate flag flying above it. Martin Luther King addressed the crowd of 25,000, calling the march, a "shining moment in American history."
what is selma?
she would be traveling to Selma
she would be traveling to Selma