March 26, 1965. LBJ makes this statement to the press about the arrest of four KKK members responsible for the murder of a white civil rights worked from Detroit, Viola Gregg Liuzzo, who was shot on the highway while driving a car to Montgomery in order to shuttle civil rights marchers back to Selma.
The four are brought up on federal charges, and three will eventually be convicted by an all-white federal jury in Montgomery and sentenced to 10 years each. The fourth man, Gary Thomas Rowe, Jr., is actually an FBI informant. Earlier that day, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had spoken to LBJ about FBI informants in the KKK. Listen to their conversation here.
Viola Liuzzo was a 39 year old mother of 5. After her death, a smear campaign painted her as a promiscuous woman with ties to the mafia and communism. The first trial ended in a hung jury. LBJ ordered a federal investigation which led to the eventual convictions. Viola is one of the forty activists honored on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery
