I’m doing research on Viola Liuzzo who was shot and killed by Klansmen in Selma, AL in March of 1965 following the Selma Civil Rights march.
Another man, Leroy Moten was in the car with her and survived. He pretended to be dead when the klansmen came back to assess the damage. He then ran down the road until he found a truck full of supporters he recognized from the march. He told them what happened and then fainted in the car. This is the last recorded sighting of Leroy Moten that I have found.
Does anybody know where I can find more information on Leroy Moten?
I appreciate any help.
Start with http://www.google.com
Un-paywalled repost:
Here was the author’s previous article–but I couldn’t find a repost:
Few know about Moton’s contribution to black history, or about the ink-black night a month after his release when he raced through the Alabama countryside in work boots he wore during the 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery. Dashing through muddy pastureland, Moton was fleeing the unseen gunman whose speeding car had pulled alongside the automobile he had been riding in. The man had fired into the front seat, killing the driver — protester Viola Liuzzo, a Detroit mother of five who became the only white woman killed in the civil rights movement. Whoever had murdered Liuzzo, Moton feared, was right behind him.
Today, Moton sounds matter-of-fact as he describes acts of intense racist violence in the months preceding the bill’s passage: “They killed Jimmie Lee Jackson,” he begins. “Nothing happened. They killed [Boston pastor] James Reeb — a white man. Nothing happened.
“They killed Viola Liuzzo, a white woman,” he says. “[Congress] passed the Voting Rights Act.”