# Whatever happened to Leroy Moten?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-leroy-moten/73688>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 24, 2001, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-leroy-moten/73688 "2001-07-24T23:07:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Knight16](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/35a633/32.png) [@Knight16](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knight16)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2001, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-leroy-moten/73688/1 "2001-07-24T23:07:56Z")

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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.

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**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2001, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-leroy-moten/73688/2 "2001-07-25T22:43:49Z")

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Start with [http://www.google.com](http://www.google.com)🙂

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**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-leroy-moten/73688/3 "2024-02-03T19:18:34Z")

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> **[Perspective | The ordinary death of an extraordinary civil rights icon](https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/01/29/leroy-moton-civil-rights-quiet-death/)**
>
> Leroy Moton, a freedom fighter you may have never heard of, died quietly in Connecticut after a lifelong fight for voting rights.

Un-paywalled repost:

[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-ordinary-death-of-an-extraordinary-civil-rights-icon/ar-BB1hr8aw](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-ordinary-death-of-an-extraordinary-civil-rights-icon/ar-BB1hr8aw)

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.”

> **[‘They killed a white woman’: Fifty-four years later, Leroy Moton looks back...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/02/27/they-killed-white-woman-fifty-four-years-later-leroy-moton-looks-back-killing-that-changed-civil-rights-movement-forever/?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_6)**
>
> A key turning point in the fight for African-American rights came in February 1965 when a white protester was killed by the KKK. Leroy Moton, one of the only living witnesses, tells the story.