Viola Gregg Liuzzo will be honored Friday with a posthumous doctor of laws degree by Wayne State University, but there are many other activities this week that will allow people to pay homage to the civil rights martyr. Liuzzo, a Detroit mother of five and Wayne State student, was murdered by the KKK in March 1965 in Selma, Alabama, where she was helping with voter registration after seeing TV news footage of violence on "Bloody Sunday" and hearing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s call for help. While driving another volunteer home, the Detroiter was shot and killed in her own car as she drove on the Selma-Montgomery highway. The week of events kicks off Thursday with a screening at Wayne State of the 2004 documentary "Home of the Brave." The film depicts what happened to Liuzzo on that highway outside Selma, and it shows how her children have struggled for years to get the government to reveal what it knew about her murderers, one of whom was a paid FBI informant. On Friday, 1:30-3 p.m., a presentation of the posthumous honorary degree to Viola Liuzzo and special dedication of greenspace will take place, with a reception to follow. On Monday, 5:30-8:30 p.m., civil rights attorney Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, will give the Dean A. Robb Annual Public Interest Lecture at the WSU Law School Partrich Auditorium.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/life/2015/04/07/viola-liuzzo-detroit-wayne-state-degree-selma-civil-rights/25432865/
http://patch.com/michigan/royaloak/new-park-plan-fundraisers-and-lectures-honor-civil-rights-martyr-viola-liuzzo
http://www.ourmidland.com/prweb/wayne-state-university-to-honor-civil-rights-activist-viola-liuzzo/article_4e0660fc-20e0-5ae0-b106-f092cf30c8f8.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/celebrities/article17819858.html
http://www.sfgate.com/business/press-releases/article/Wayne-State-University-to-honor-civil-rights-6184642.php
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/press-releases/article/Wayne-State-University-to-honor-civil-rights-6184642.php