Re: [Marxism] Viola Liuzzo
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * She was also the wife of a Teamster official; in fact I vaguely remember a couple years ago someone pointed out (maybe on another list) that her own history usually got lost in favor of the brief mention - however important - of the husband's affiliation. I think the Militant ran something on the union holding a memorial service for her; folks can do a search at MIA. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Viola Liuzzo
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Later today I will be blogging about the HBO film "All the Way" that stars Bryan Cranston as LBJ. In doing some background reading on LBJ in Kenneth O'Reilly's superlative "Nixon's Piano", I ran across the name of Viola Liuzzo, a woman from Detroit who was killed by the KKK in 1965 while transporting marchers back to their home from the Selma to Montgomery freedom march. Out of curiosity, I checked what Wikipedia had to say about here. It really gives you a sense of the sea change that has taken place in the American working class. --- Liuzzo was born Viola Fauver Gregg on April 11, 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. The couple had one other daughter, Rose Mary, in 1930. While on the job, Heber's right hand was blown off in a mine explosion, and, during the Great Depression, the Greggs became solely dependent on Eva’s income. Work was very hard to come by for Mrs. Gregg, as she could only pick up sporadic, short-term, teaching positions. The family descended further into poverty and decided to move Georgia to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Eva Gregg found a teaching position, when Viola was six.[4] The family was very poor and lived in one-room shacks with no running water. The schools Liuzzo attended did not have adequate supplies and the teachers were too busy to give extra attention to children in need. Because the family moved so often, Liuzzo never began and ended the school year in the same place. Having spent much of her childhood and adolescence poor in Tennessee, Viola experienced the segregated nature of the South firsthand. This would eventually have a powerful impact on Liuzzo’s activism. It was during her formative years that Liuzzo realized the unjustness of segregation and racism, as she and her family, in similar conditions of great poverty, were still afforded social privilege and amenities denied to African Americans under the Jim Crow laws.[5] Although her parents argued against it, Liuzzo dropped out of school in the tenth grade. She and her father often argued about her social activities and, at the age of 16, Liuzzo ran away and married a much older man. The marriage lasted only one day. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Viola Liuzzo - a forgotten and besmirched working class civil rights hero
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * What a wonderful tribute to her! Really brings out the gender and other contexts that made her remarkable. Until now all I knew about her was that she was married to a Teamsters official. I don't remember where I read it, maybe a throw-away line in The Militant or some other left source implying or stating openly there was come connection between her activism and her husband's. Anyway here's what a quick google turns up on the topic: The news of Liuzzo's death was front-page news in Detroit. Teamsters president James R. Hoffa had her body flown back to Detroit, and Teamsters guarded the Liuzzo home around the clock, as their wives cooked and cleaned. http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan-history/2015/01/08/viola-liuzzo-detroit-selma-alabama-movie-march-montgomery/21483659/ And: Viola Liuzzo and her husband Anthony “Jim” Liuzzo, who retired after more than 16 years as a business agent of Teamsters Local 247, had always been a family with a purpose. They believed in racial equality, helping fellow union members in their struggle for economic justice or dignity on the job and fighting discrimination in all its form as they had done all their life. http://old1.teamster.org/about/100year/Bios/liuzzobio.htm On Mon, Mar 9, 2015 at 4:10 PM, Dennis Brasky via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Liuzzo was one of thousands of people at the grass roots whose names never make it into the history books, but without whom there would be no improvement of the human condition. They are the mass in mass movements. http://coreyrobin.com/2015/03/09/the-lives-they-touched/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Viola Liuzzo - a forgotten and besmirched working class civil rights hero
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Liuzzo was one of thousands of people at the grass roots whose names never make it into the history books, but without whom there would be no improvement of the human condition. They are the mass in mass movements. http://coreyrobin.com/2015/03/09/the-lives-they-touched/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
