National

Slain Civil Rights Activist to Receive Posthumous Degree

Published

11 years ago

March 21, 2015

Reporter II

Memorial to Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo in Lowndes County, Alabama. (Carol M. Highsmith/public domain)

Corey Williams, ASSOCIATED PRESS

DETROIT (AP) — For 24 years, a stone marker has stood along U.S. 80 in Alabama’s Lowndes County, near the spot where Viola Gregg Liuzzo was fatally shot by Klansmen while shuttling demonstrators after the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.

But in Liuzzo’s hometown of Detroit, such public recognition is scarce. A wooden marker bearing her name sits on a fence beside a small neighborhood playfield; Last year, an exhibit in Lansing included Liuzzo among Michigan women who contributed significantly to civil rights.

That will change on April 10. Liuzzo’s former school, Wayne State University, plans to award her an honorary doctor of laws degree. It’s the first posthumous honorary degree in the 145-year-old school’s history. Wayne State also will dedicate a tree or green space for Liuzzo.

Liuzzo’s five children have been invited to the ceremony. Liuzzo’s husband, Anthony Liuzzo Sr., died in 1978.

“I cried,” Liuzzo’s daughter, Mary Liuzzo Lilleboe, said of her reaction to Wayne State’s decision. “It’s the highest honor an educational institution can bestow on someone. It’s the honor that’s being paid to her. She’s a civil rights giant.”

Kim Trent, a member of Wayne State’s Board of Governors, initially broached the idea a decade ago as president of Wayne State’s black alumni organization. The school declined, citing its policy of not awarding posthumous degrees, Trent said.

“The truth of the matter is that Viola is worthy because she is deceased,” Trent said. “She is a civil rights martyr. I understood there was something more important at stake.”

Trent was elected to the same board in 2012, and recently took another run at recognition for Liuzzo. They passed the recommendation in February.

“My colleagues were like, ‘Sure, we should do this,'” Trent said.

Liuzzo was a nursing student at Wayne State when she joined the civil rights movement. At the time of her death, the white, 39-year-old mother also was a member of Detroit’s branch of the NAACP.

From her home, Liuzzo watched televised news reports of demonstrators being beaten by police in Selma on March 7, 1965, during the first attempt to march to Montgomery, a day that became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

That march was followed two days later by another, abbreviated demonstration led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Rev. James Reeb, a white Unitarian minister from Boston, was severely beaten that night and later died. An all-white jury acquitted three white men of murder charges in Reeb’s death.

Just over two weeks after Reeb’s death, Liuzzo too was dead, struck in the head by shots fired from a passing car. Her black passenger, 19-year-old Leroy Moton, was wounded but survived by pretending to be dead. Four Ku Klux Klan members were arrested, and an all-white, all-male jury acquitted three of them of murder. Those same three were later convicted of federal charges in Liuzzo’s death. The fourth assailant was granted immunity and placed in the federal witness protection program.

Lilleboe said she was 17 when her mother quietly drove to Alabama the weekend before the third attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery, planned for March 25.

“If she saw wrong and she couldn’t right it, she took action,” said Lilleboe. “She always told us the story that she was treated badly because she was poor, but the ‘little black kids were treated worse.'”

Liuzzo didn’t reveal where she was going until well after she left, because she didn’t want her husband to stop her, Lilleboe said. She did, however, contact her family regularly by phone.

“She called and she was rather jubilant because the march had made it,” Lilleboe recalled. “She was coming home. My brothers picked up little pretend signs and started marching around singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’

“About midnight, dad got a phone call and they said ‘your wife … there has been an accident.’ We knew she had been murdered.”

Law professor Peter Hammer, director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State, said non-blacks who fought to dismantle Jim Crow segregation “were subject to the same vitriol” aimed at blacks, “and in some respects — even more so.”

“For a white woman to cross the line took even more courage and was probably subject to more hatred,” Hammer said. Also, he said, there is a tendency, in telling civil rights history, to sideline roles played by women of all races.

The Alabama marker honoring Liuzzo was erected by the Women of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1991. At the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Liuzzo is the only white woman honored among the martyrs.

After Liuzzo’s death, her family endured a cross burning and hate mail at their Detroit home. Her children were harassed at school. Liuzzo’s husband hired armed guards for protection. A smear campaign, engineered by the FBI, hinted that Liuzzo used drugs and had illicit relationships with black men.

Liuzzo’s family filed a $2 million negligence claim against the federal government in 1977, saying the FBI knew ahead of time that Liuzzo’s killers planned to commit violence and did nothing to stop them.

The government refused to negotiate that claim. The family filed a lawsuit that went to non-jury trial in federal court in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1983, and was dismissed.

“What’s nice about what’s taking place now is that nobody is remembering the lies,” Hammer said. “People are remembering her life and courage.”

Lilleboe, who now lives in Oregon, is proud of her mother’s enduring legacy. She has traveled to Selma for “Bloody Sunday” commemorations for the past 11 years, including the 50th anniversary earlier this month.

“They embraced me with their whole hearts … because I’m my mother’s daughter,” Lilleboe said. “When I see the difference in their eyes I am so proud of my mother.”
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

5 days ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

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NPRC Joins National Grand Jury Proceedings Seeking Accountability, Constitutional Restoration

Organizers state that testimony will explore historical and political developments that they believe have contributed to the expansion of corporate influence over public institutions and governmental decision-making. Participants are expected to discuss concerns regarding constitutional governance, individual liberties, property rights, and the protection of vulnerable populations, including seniors and persons with disabilities.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Photo by Billie Powers.

Special to The Post

The National Probate Reform Coalition (NPRC) has joined Toll and Roll and a growing coalition of advocacy organizations, victims, whistleblowers, and citizen groups in support of a nationally broadcast People’s Grand Jury proceeding scheduled for July 1 and July 7.

Organizers describe the event as a public forum designed to examine allegations of government abuse, judicial misconduct, legislative failures, and the erosion of constitutional protections affecting millions of Americans.

The proceedings will feature testimony from victims, families, advocates, and organizations from across the country who contend they have experienced harm through government actions, institutional neglect, and failures of oversight.

According to organizers, the People’s Grand Jury will focus on concerns involving probate courts, guardianships, conservatorships, child welfare systems, property rights, civil liberties, and what participants view as a growing disconnect between government institutions and the constitutional rights of the people they are sworn to serve.

NPRC is participating because many of the issues being examined mirror the concerns raised by advocates, victims, and families who have participated in its monthly town halls. For years, families have reported cases involving exploitation of elders, questionable guardianships, estate depletion, denial of due process, and a lack of meaningful oversight within probate court systems.

“This proceeding gives victims and advocates an opportunity to place their experiences on the public record,” said Tanya Dennis, lead facilitator of NPRC. “For too long, families have struggled to have their voices heard regarding elder abuse, probate exploitation, and government inaction. This forum allows those stories to be shared before a national audience.”

In keeping with principles of transparency and fairness, invitations have been extended to legislators, members of the judiciary, law enforcement representatives, and other public officials who may wish to respond to concerns raised during the proceedings or defend actions taken by their respective institutions.

One of the primary outcomes sought by organizers is public consideration and support for the People’s Remedy and Restoration Act, a proposed legislative framework that advocates believe would strengthen oversight, increase accountability, provide remedies for victims of governmental abuse, and restore constitutional protections.

The proceedings are expected to be broadcast nationally, providing citizens throughout the United States an opportunity to observe testimony, review evidence presented, and participate in an ongoing conversation regarding government accountability and the protection of individual rights.

Advocates hope the hearings will encourage meaningful dialogue, legislative reform, and renewed public engagement in the democratic process.

Individuals, organizations, public officials, and members of the media interested in attending or obtaining access information may contact the organizers at tollandroll2025@gmail.com.

As Americans continue to debate the future of constitutional governance, judicial accountability, and the protection of vulnerable citizens, the July proceedings are expected to serve as a significant forum for public testimony and civic engagement. For more information, go to https://tollandroll.com

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50 Years Later, ‘Wake Up Everybody!’ Still Resonates During Black Music

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

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By Hazel Trice Edney, Special to The Post

Hazel Trice Edney

“Wake up, everybody, No more sleepin’ in bed

No more backward thinkin’. Time for thinkin’ ahead

The world has changed so very much from what it used to be.

There is so much hatred, war, and poverty.

“The world won’t get no better If we just let it be.

Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw.

The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah– just you and me.”

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

In a rare, nearly somber moment, the group’s celebrated lead singer, Teddy Pendergrass, introduced the song on Soul Train, the weekly dance and live performance TV show that aired roughly between 1971 and 2006. Pendergrass told the attentive live audience and thousands watching by television that Wake Up Everybody, the title tune of their most recent album, was intended to inspire people to take action with a goal to change America for the better.

“I’m sure that you will all agree that there are things that need to be done in this country today,” he said. “So, what I’d like for you to do is listen very carefully to see what you can do to lend a hand.”

The song’s appeal worked.

“I played that song over and over and over again because it was a constant warning to keep ourselves prepared for the society that we were living in,” says A. Peter Bailey, then a 37-year-old former aide to Malcolm X.

When “Wake Up Everybody” hit the airwaves, Bailey was working as an associate editor of Ebony Magazine. “It was a call to be aware of what we were dealing with in the country that we lived in, the world we lived in, the neighborhood we lived in, the cities that we lived in,” Bailey said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire.

He concluded that during Black Music Month 2026, such songs should be recalled and celebrated as a key to changes for the good across America; especially because such songs successfully encouraged people to deal with the issues that might otherwise denigrate the promises of America, including the promise that “All men are created equal,”as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

“The rhythms and blues expressed our joys, our sorrows and our fears,” Bailey recalls. “It was those songs and the singing of those songs by our people that attracted us to the campaigns for justice.”

With his life inspired by that song and others, Bailey, now 88, went on to establish and teach a Black Press class at Virginia Commonwealth University. Also, he has since written three books, including a memoir, “Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher,” in which he expounded upon successful principles of social justice, some of which are reflected in “Wake Up Everybody.”

Long before the term “woke” became associated with campaigns for justice, Pendergrass led the song that reverberated across America and still holds deep meaning.

The ‘wake up’ call exhorts teachers to ‘teach a new way,’ doctors to heal elders, and builders to ‘build a new land… we can do it if we all lend a hand.”

The song concludes:

“The world won’t get no better if we just let it be. Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw. The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah – just you and me.”

Hazel Trice Edney wrote this story as part of a four-part series powered by AARP in commemoration of Black Music Month, June 2026.