From Selma to Sorrow

¶ … Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo by Mary Stanton. Specifically it will discuss the book and the author incorporating particular questions into the essay. "From Selma to Sorrow" tells the story of Viola Liuzzo, a white civil rights worker and mother murdered in Selma, Alabama in 1965 and the only white woman to be honored on the Civil Rights Memorial. The book opens up new questions about law enforcement and the South during the 1960s, and makes the reader stop and think about all the senseless violence that has been committed simply because of race or religion. This book is a biography, but it also encompasses the history and beliefs of the time, giving the reader a glimpse into the past and events that cannot be changed.

Author Stanton takes present time and the past and weaves them together to form the backdrop of this book. The sad thing is, sometimes the past and the present seem to blend together and get hazy. It seems that is the South, a lot of the prejudice and hatred is still there, it just does not make the headlines anymore. For example, the author writes about the marker on the road where Liuzzo was murdered. She says a Montgomery social worker tells her, "Their third try I believe [to erect a marker]. The markers keep getting knocked over. The first one was smashed up with a sledge hammer'" (Stanton 21). The social worker is not speaking in 1965, but in 1994. The author shows that time stands still in areas of the South, and that some hatreds take a long time to die. As another interviewee in the book notes, "The South is a peculiar place'" (Stanton 22).

At first, the author's own voice in the beginning of the book seemed like an intrusion into the story that did not need to occur. However, the author uses her own voice to give the reader something very important to the eventual telling of the story. Her own experience of the 1960s as a young woman new to the workforce gives the essential background and color to the reader so they understand the time period and the overall mood of the country. Her remembrances of the Evening News and the stories on Vietnam, Martin Luther King, President Johnson, and more (Stanton 4) help the reader feel more comfortable with the history, and understand just how much turmoil and unrest the country faced at the time. Without this introduction in the author's voice, the rest of the book might not have made so much sense historically.

Just about everything the author includes in the book exemplifies this time period. She includes information on the people she interviews, and what the South is like as she is putting it together, so there is something to compare history with. The remembrances of the people in the book seem to make history come alive, and they also really represent the feelings and attitudes or the times, especially when it comes to a white woman working for freedom in the South. There is something else that exemplifies the time period, and that is controversy, like the controversy surrounding Gary Thomas Rowe and his work with the FBI. Why did the FBI infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and then allow it to continue with its violent mission? The author writes, "The bureau obviously accepted Rowe's participation in violence as the price for getting information about the Klan" (Stanton 53). While the shooting and Rowe's participation in it now seems like a very black comedy of errors, this book brings up many questions that go unanswered, and may never be answered. It also gives the reader much insight into the underpinnings of our nation's history, making them question who a person can really trust, and who they really cannot.

The book is literally filled with historical research, personal reminisces, and a feeling and hue of the times the action took place. The author includes enough information to make her detailed research and responses credible, but not so much that it totally overwhelms the reader. It seems she did a good job of including what needed to be included and cutting what did not. Perhaps the best thing the author does is paint a compelling and emotional picture of Liuzzo herself, which really helps to bring home just what a real tragedy her murder was. She was a mother, a wife, and a woman interested in education and social reform. She was a person, but her murderers only saw a woman they hated, and never gave her a chance. The author includes vital information that makes her real and alive, and that is perhaps her greatest achievement in this book. Including the family photographs was very helpful in making the entire Liuzzo family come alive, and including the trials and their outcomes creates a sense of outrage in the reader. Leaving any of these items out would have created a different, and not so interesting, book.

It seems that just about all the major issues that American faced in the 1960s are reflected in this book. The author includes other issues, such as Vietnam, poverty, and prejudice to give a well-rounded view of the country at the time, and why people behaved as they did. These were emotional times, and that is conveyed very well throughout the pages of this story. They are still emotional times, which is why some people simply refused to discuss Liuzzo with the author, even after all these years.