Viola Liuzzo-Civil Rights Worker Murder Trials Court Documents, Transcripts and Historical Files

Description

The Selma Marches and Liuzzo’s Murder Trials

Pre-1960s:

• 1828: Lowndes County Courthouse in Hayneville, Alabama, is built.

1960s:

• 1960 or 1961: Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. is approached by an FBI agent and asked to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.
• 1961: Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. participates in a Klan attack on Freedom Riders at the Birmingham bus depot. The FBI was aware of planned violence three weeks in advance.
• 1963: Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. shoots an unidentified Black man; his FBI handling agent allegedly tells him to keep quiet about it.
• 1964: Viola Liuzzo becomes active in the Detroit chapter of the NAACP.
• March 7, 1965 (Bloody Sunday): Alabama State Troopers and deputies violently disperse approximately 625 marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, during a demonstration for voter registration. John Lewis is among those assaulted and receives a head injury. FBI agents take photographs of the event.
• March 8, 1965: Viola Liuzzo sees the “Bloody Sunday” violence on TV and decides to go to Selma.
• March 11, 1965: John Lewis gives a statement to the FBI about being assaulted on Bloody Sunday.
• March 13, 1965: Alice Guillemette writes to J. Edgar Hoover asking if he agrees with FBI agent James M. Barbo’s reported statement that troopers acted in public interest on Bloody Sunday.
• March 15, 1965: Universal Newsreel Volume 38, Issue 22, titled “The Selma Story,” reports on the impact of Bloody Sunday.
• March 16, 1965: An FBI memo identifies James M. Barko as the agent who reportedly testified that state troopers acted in public interest.
• March 17, 1965: Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. issues an injunction (Williams v. Wallace) allowing the Selma to Montgomery Marches to take place.
• March 21, 1965: Viola Liuzzo joins 3,000 other marchers crossing the Pettus Bridge.
• March 22-23, 1965: Viola Liuzzo continues working at Brown Chapel’s registration desk, makes shuttle runs, and serves at the campsite’s first-aid station.
• March 24, 1965: Viola Liuzzo meets Leroy Moton, a 19-year-old civil rights worker, who had been using her car as an airport shuttle.
• March 25, 1965:Viola Liuzzo and Leroy Moton drive five passengers to Selma and are returning to Montgomery.
• While stopped for gas, white bystanders shout insults at Liuzzo and Moton.
• Members of a KKK “missionary squad” (Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr., William Orville Eaton, and Eugene Thomas), with FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. in the car, spot Liuzzo and Moton at a traffic light in Selma.
• The Klansmen pursue Liuzzo’s car for twenty miles.
• On Route 80 in rural Lowndes County, the Klansmen pull alongside Liuzzo’s car and shoot at her. Viola Liuzzo is killed instantly; her car rolls into a ditch. Leroy Moton escapes injury.
• Eugene Thomas, Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr., and William Orville Eaton are quickly identified and arrested due to Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.’s presence.
• Shortly after March 25, 1965: J. Edgar Hoover participates in smearing Liuzzo, making false claims about drug use and inappropriate conduct with a Black man to President Johnson.
• May 3-7, 1965: The first state trial, Alabama v. Wilkins, takes place in Lowndes County. Only Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr. is prosecuted. The all-white, all-male jury fails to reach a unanimous agreement (10-2 to convict on manslaughter). The two holdout jurors, members of the White Citizens Council, state they could not believe FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. because he violated his Klan oath.
• May 6, 1965: Matt Murphy, chief counsel for the KKK in Alabama, delivers his closing argument for the defense in the first Wilkins trial, appealing strongly to racism and white supremacy.
• August 25, 1965: White v. Crook, a class action lawsuit challenging the jury selection system in Lowndes County, Alabama, is filed, alleging systematic exclusion of African American men and all women from jury service.
• September 1965 (after the first state trial and before the second): Civil rights worker Jonathan Daniels is killed in Hayneville by Tom Coleman, an unpaid Lowndes County special deputy. Father Richard F. Morrisroe is also shot by Coleman but survives.
• September 30, 1965: Tom Coleman is found “not guilty” by an all-white jury after deliberating for 63 minutes in the Jonathan Daniels murder trial.
• October 18-22, 1965: The second state trial, Alabama v. Wilkins, takes place. Alabama Attorney General Richmond Flowers prosecutes, and Art Hanes defends. The all-white, all-male jury, including 10 present or former White Citizens Council members, returns “not guilty” verdicts in less than two hours.
• December 1965 – February 1966: Legal briefs and arguments are filed in White v. Crook.
• August 6, 1965: President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law.
• Within 3 weeks of Voting Rights Act enactment: President Johnson announces over 27,000 Black individuals had been registered by Federal examiners in three Southern States.
• February 7, 1966: A federal court, in White v. Crook, invalidates an Alabama statute excluding women from juries under the Equal Protection Clause.
• After second state trial: The U.S. Justice Department seeks indictments against Wilkins, Thomas, and Eaton, using the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act.
• Mid-1966: William Orville Eaton dies of a heart attack.
• September 26, 1966: Eugene Thomas goes on trial. Due to increased Black voter registration, 8 of the 12 seated jurors are Black. The jury acquits Thomas after 90 minutes of deliberation.
• 1967: The House Un-American Activities Committee issues “The Present-Day Ku Klux Klan Movement” report, summarizing its investigation into modern KKK operations.
• August 1968: Richmond Flowers is indicted in federal court for violation of the Hobbs Act.
• February 27, 1969: Richmond Flowers is convicted and sentenced to eight years.

1970s:

• April 1972: Richmond Flowers enters federal prison in Texarkana, Texas, after his last appeal is denied.
• Fall 1974: Richmond Flowers is paroled.
• 1975: The Liuzzo case resurfaces. Gary Thomas Rowe Jr., wearing a bizarre cotton hood, testifies to a Senate committee that the FBI knew of his violent acts against Black people.
• October 1975: Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. is deposed by the Senate Select Committee on Governmental Operations (Church Committee).
• December 2, 1975: Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. testifies before the Church Committee. He states that FBI agents tacitly encouraged his participation in violence and admits to involvement in the 1961 Freedom Rider attack and carrying weapons to Tuscaloosa.
• April 1976: The Church Committee issues its Final Report, revealing more information regarding FBI and Rowe’s activities.
• 1977: Congressional Hearings on FBI Charter Proposals and Attorney General’s Domestic Intelligence Guidelines include discussion of Gary Rowe.
• 1978:Congressional Hearings on FBI Statutory Charter largely cover Gary Rowe.
• July 8, 9, 11, 1978: The New York Times publishes reports that Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. took part in violent crimes while an FBI informant.
• July 1978: ABC television airs a two-part documentary suggesting Rowe fired the bullet that killed Liuzzo and that he showed “indications of deception” on a polygraph.
• July 12, 1978: Senators Edward M. Kennedy and James Abourezk send a joint letter to the Department of Justice requesting a full report on the investigation into Rowe’s alleged crimes as an informant.
• Former Klansmen (Wilkins and Thomas) accuse Rowe of shooting Viola Liuzzo before a grand jury investigating Rowe’s involvement in other violence.
• Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley charges Rowe with Viola Liuzzo’s murder.
• Richmond Flowers receives a presidential pardon from Jimmy Carter.
• October 24, 1978: Attorney General Griffin B. Bell creates a special task force within the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.’s actions and FBI handling.
• February 29, 1980: Liuzzo v. United States (485 F.Supp. 1274) is filed by the Liuzzo family against the FBI, alleging negligence.

1980s:

• 1980: The indictment against Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. for Viola Liuzzo’s murder is thrown out because he had been granted immunity from prosecution.
• March 31, 1981: Playboy Enterprises v. US Dept. of Justice (516 F. Supp. 233) case leads to the release of the Office of Professional Responsibility report on Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.
• February 25, 1981: Liuzzo v. United States (508 F. Supp. 923) continues.
• October 1982: The Justice Department loses a Freedom of Information suit filed by Playboy magazine, and the Office of Professional Responsibility’s July 1979 Task Force Report on Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. is released, stating the FBI covered up his violent activities.
• May 27, 1983: Judge Charles Wycliffe Joiner rejects the claims in the Liuzzo family lawsuit (Liuzzo v. United States, 565 F. Supp. 640), stating no evidence of FBI joint venture or conspiracy with Rowe, and that Rowe’s presence was key to solving the crime.
• August 1983: The FBI is initially awarded $79,873 in court costs in the Liuzzo lawsuit, but the amount is later reduced to $3,645 after the ACLU appeals.

1990s:

• 1998: Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. dies and is buried under the name Thomas Neal Moore, an identity established by the FBI.

2000s:

• 2005: A U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General report, “The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Compliance with the Attorney General’s Investigative Guidelines,” mentions Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.

Cast of Characters

Principle Victims & Civil Rights Figures:

• Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo: (April 11, 1925 – March 25, 1965) An Italian American, 39-year-old mother of five and member of the Unitarian Universalist Church. Active in the Detroit NAACP, she traveled to Selma after seeing “Bloody Sunday” violence. She was murdered by Klansmen on March 25, 1965, while shuttling civil rights marchers between Selma and Montgomery.
• Leroy Moton: A 19-year-old African American civil rights worker who was with Viola Liuzzo in her car when she was murdered. He survived the shooting and was a key witness in the subsequent trials.
• Jonathan Daniels: A 26-year-old white seminary student from New Hampshire and civil rights worker who was killed in Hayneville in September 1965 while shielding 17-year-old activist Ruby Sales.
• Ruby Sales: A 17-year-old activist who was being threatened by Tom Coleman when Jonathan Daniels shielded her, leading to Daniels’ death.
• Father Richard F. Morrisroe: A Catholic priest who was shot in the back by Tom Coleman during the same incident that killed Jonathan Daniels. He survived.
• John Lewis: A civil rights leader representing SNCC, who, alongside Hosea Williams, led the Selma march on “Bloody Sunday” (March 7, 1965), where he sustained a head injury from an assault by state troopers.
• Hosea Williams: A civil rights leader representing SCLC, who co-led the Selma march on “Bloody Sunday” with John Lewis.
• Martin Luther King Jr.: Prominent civil rights leader who commented on the prospects of the Liuzzo murder trials, expressing skepticism about convictions.

Accused Klansmen & Co-conspirators in Liuzzo Murder:

• Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr.: One of the four Ku Klux Klan members in the car during Viola Liuzzo’s murder. He was the primary defendant in the two state murder trials and was later convicted in the federal civil rights trial.
• William Orville Eaton: One of the four Klansmen in the car during Liuzzo’s murder. He was indicted in the federal civil rights trial but died of a heart attack three months after its conclusion.
• Eugene Thomas: One of the four Klansmen in the car during Liuzzo’s murder, and the owner of the gun used. He was convicted in the federal civil rights trial and later acquitted in a state murder trial.
• Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. (also known as Thomas Neal Moore): A Klansman who was secretly an FBI informant. He was in the car when Viola Liuzzo was murdered and testified as the star witness in her murder trials. Later investigations and polygraph results suggested he may have fired the fatal shot, but he was granted immunity from prosecution. He died in 1998.

Legal Figures & Government Officials:

• J. Edgar Hoover: Director of the FBI. He participated in smearing Viola Liuzzo after her death, making false claims to President Johnson about her character.
• President Lyndon B. Johnson: U.S. President who signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. He was misinformed by J. Edgar Hoover regarding Viola Liuzzo.
• Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr.: U.S. District Judge who issued the preliminary injunction allowing the Selma marches and presided over the federal civil rights trial (US v. Eaton, Wilkins & Thomas) for Liuzzo’s murder. He was known for demanding strict compliance with civil rights law.
• Richmond Flowers: Alabama Attorney General. He immediately announced a retrial after the first Wilkins trial’s mistrial and personally took over the prosecution of Tom Coleman (Jonathan Daniels’ killer). He later prosecuted the second Wilkins trial. He was considered a moderate on race, later campaigned for governor, and was convicted of federal extortion charges, receiving a presidential pardon in 1978.
• Joe Breck Gantt: Alabama’s Assistant Attorney General who assisted Richmond Flowers in the second Wilkins trial and was a prosecutor in the first state trial. In his opening statement for the first trial, he stated his belief in segregation.
• Matt Murphy Jr.: Chief counsel for the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama and the defense attorney in the first state trial of Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr. His closing arguments were notorious for their appeal to racism and white supremacy. He died in a car accident three months after the first trial.
• Art Hanes: Former Birmingham mayor, former FBI agent, and staunch segregationist. He replaced Matt Murphy as defense counsel in the second state trial of Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr.
• Judge T. Werth Thagard: The presiding judge in the first and second state trials of Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr. He was seen as allowing the defense wide latitude in the first trial but was more restrictive in the second.
• Tom Coleman: An unpaid Lowndes County special deputy who killed Jonathan Daniels and shot Father Richard F. Morrisroe. He was acquitted of manslaughter by an all-white jury.
• John Doar: Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the U.S. Justice Department. He argued that the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act could be applied to the Liuzzo murder and personally presented the case in the federal trial. He also argued in court in support of the plaintiffs in White v. Crook.
• James P. Turner: A Justice Department lawyer in the Civil Rights Division assigned to the Liuzzo Murder trials. Author of “Selma and the Liuzzo Murder Trials: The First Modern Civil Rights Convictions.”
• Griffin B. Bell: U.S. Attorney General who created a special task force in 1978 to investigate allegations against Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. and the FBI’s handling of him.
• Bill Baxley: Alabama Attorney General who charged Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. with Viola Liuzzo’s murder in 1978, though the indictment was later dismissed due to immunity.
• Edward M. Kennedy: U.S. Senator who, with James Abourezk, wrote to the Department of Justice in 1978 requesting a report on the investigation into Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.
• James Abourezk: U.S. Senator who, with Edward M. Kennedy, wrote to the Department of Justice in 1978 requesting a report on the investigation into Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.
• Judge Charles Wycliffe Joiner: U.S. District Judge who presided over the Liuzzo family’s lawsuit against the U.S. government (Liuzzo v. United States) and ultimately rejected their claims.
• Mr. Rosen (A. Rosen): An FBI official mentioned in a memo to Mr. Belmont, criticizing the violent actions of Alabama State Troopers on “Bloody Sunday.”
• Mr. Evans: An individual mentioned with Mr. Rosen as needing to “straighten out” John Doar on at least two occasions regarding the FBI’s response to civil rights violations.
• James M. Barbo (Barko): An FBI special agent who was reported to have stated that state troopers acted in the public interest by breaking up the Selma march with tear gas.

Other Notable Mentions:

• Alice Guillemette: A citizen from Massachusetts who wrote to J. Edgar Hoover questioning an FBI agent’s perceived stance on “Bloody Sunday.”
• Alvin Benn: A reporter for UPI who covered the first Wilkins trial.
• Robert Shelton: The Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America, called as the first witness for the defense in the first Wilkins trial.
• Robert Thomas: Grand Dragon of the Eastview Klavern, where the accused Klansmen were members, called as the second defense witness in the first Wilkins trial.
• Lurleen Wallace: First wife of Alabama Governor George Wallace, who succeeded her husband as governor in 1966 due to constitutional term limits. She defeated Richmond Flowers in the Democratic nomination.
• George Wallace: Alabama Governor. His wife, Lurleen, succeeded him as governor.

Viola Liuzzo-Civil Rights Worker Murder Trials Court Documents, Transcripts and Historical Files

The United States v. Eaton, Wilkins & Thomas was the first conviction of Klansmen in a civil rights homicide related case in modern southern history.

4,417 pages of court documents, trial transcripts, Department of Justice and FBI Files and  Congressional reporting related to the two state trials and the one federal trial of the accused murderer(s) of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo by the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. Civil rights volunteer Viola Liuzzo from Detroit was shot to death as she was driving to Montgomery to pick up marchers to return to Selma. Four Ku Klux Klan members were arrested for her murder, three of whom were eventually convicted of violating Mrs. Liuzzo’s civil rights and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The documents date from 1965 to 1983. Includes a report of a Department of Justice investigation into the activity of controversial FBI Klan informant Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. Includes court documents related to a Justice Department lawsuit against Lowndes County, Alabama, for discrimination on the basis of race and gender in its jury selection system. Also included is the reconstitution of closing arguments made by defense counsel in the first trial.

Montgomery Marches

The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery, to call for the protection of African American citizen’s constitutional right to vote.

The Selma campaign led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Johnson on August 6, 1965. The act provided for direct action through use of Federal examiners to register voters turned away by local officials. The Department of Justice suspended voter qualification devices such as literacy tests in several Southern States, and within 3 weeks of the law’s enactment, President Johnson announced that over 27,000 Blacks had been registered by Federal examiners in three Southern States.

Viola Liuzzo

Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo (April 11, 1925-March 25, 1965) was an Italian American 39-year-old member of the Unitarian Universalist Church and mother of five. Twice she was arrested, pleaded guilty, and insisted on a trial to publicize the causes for which she was advocating. In 1964, she became active in the Detroit chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). After seeing the March 8, 1965 Bloody Sunday violence in Selma Alabama on TV, she decided to go to Selma.

On Sunday, March 21, she joined 3,000 other marchers crossing the Pettus Bridge, the site of Bloody Sunday. On Monday and Tuesday, she continued her work at the Brown Chapel’s registration desk and made shuttle runs from the airport to the marchers’ campsite. Afterward she served at the campsite’s first-aid station.

On March 24 she met 19-year-old civil rights worker Leroy Moton, an African American man, who had been using her car all day as an airport shuttle. The two of them drove five passengers to Selma and was driving back to Montgomery.

When they stopped for gas, Moton says white bystanders shouted insults. Further along the road the driver of another car turned on his high beams and left them shining into her rearview mirror. Members of a KKK “missionary squad,” Collie Leroy Wilkins, Jr., William Orville Eaton, and Eugene Thomas, spotted Liuzzo and Moton stopped at a traffic light in Selma. They followed her car for twenty miles. On Route 80 in rural Lowndes County, about halfway between Selma and Montgomery the driver of the car carrying four men pulled their car up next to her car and shot at her. Liuzzo was killed instantly. Her car rolled into a ditch. Moton escaped injury.

Three men, Eugene Thomas, Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr., and William Orville Eaton were quickly identified and arrested for the crime, because the fourth man in the car Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. was an FBI informant.

J. Edgar Hoover participated in smearing Liuzzo. Cut marks from the car’s shattered window were misidentified by Hoover, who told President Johnson, “we found on her body numerous needle points indicating that she may have been taking dope.” Hoover further said that the Klan noticed her car because, “this colored man was sitting up pretty close to this white woman who was driving.” The doctor who performed the autopsy testified in court that no hypodermic needle marks were found on her body. Phone conversation audio recorded by Lyndon Johnson, containing conversations related to the Liuzzo murder, including those with Hoover can be found in the collection Alabama Civil Rights Worker Viola Liuzzo Murder – Alabama KKK FBI Files – President Johnson Secret Audio Recordings.

Documents include:

Williams v. Wallace (M.D. Ala. CA No. 2181-N), March 17, 1965 Preliminary Injunction

Injunction issued by Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. allowing the Selma Marches to take place

First Trial – Alabama v. Wilkins (2d Jud. Cir. Lowndes County, Alabama, No. 155), May 3 – 7, 1965 Trial Transcript and Court Document

In the first trial only Collie Leroy Wilkins, Jr. was prosecuted. It was anticipated that a guilty verdict would result in the rest being prosecuted in the fall.

The Lowndes County Courthouse in Hayneville still had restrooms designated as “White” and “Colored.” In Lowndes County the schools were still

segregated. Black students went to schools that were often unpainted shacks, sitting on cinder blocks with outdoor toilets.

According to Alvin Benn, a reporter who covered the trial for UPI, in his opening statement prosecutor Joe Gannt, Alabama’s Assistant Attorney General, said that he didn’t want to talk about “segregation or integration, or whites, or niggers, or marchers, or demonstrators.”  He also said he believed in segregation. He said he wanted to talk about one thing a murder in Lowndes County.

In his opening statement Klan attorney Matt Murphy set the theme for the defense. First, that FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. was a liar because he violated his oath of secrecy to the Ku Klux Klan. Even though his testimony did not violate the oath, because the oath included exemptions for, “The crime of violating this solemn oath, treason against the United States of America, rape, and malicious murder, alone excepted.” Second, that Liuzzo in a car with a black man was an abomination.

The star witness for the prosecution was Klansman and FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. Rowe said he left Birmingham for the Selma-Montgomery area on the morning of the 25th and called his FBI contact agent to inform him of the trip. While in Selma, Rowe and three Klan companions spotted Mrs. Liuzzo and a black man in a car. His companions expressed a desire to “take them.” The Klansmen pursued Liuzzo’s car down Highway 80 between Selma and Montgomery and tried several times to overtake the car. Rowe testified that he tried to convince the Klansmen several times to turn back, but that they insisted on continuing. Finally, on the fourth attempt, at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour, the Klan car overtook Liuzzo’s car.

Rowe stated that as they overtook the Liuzzo car, one of the Klansmen passed his gun to Wilkins, and Wilkins opened his window and fired two shots, just as Mrs. Liuzzo turned to her left and looked at them. According to Rowe, Eugene Thomas, the owner of the gun, directed the men to “shoot the hell out of them.” Rowe testified that he drew his pistol and pretended to fire but did not. Rowe further testified that he did not know when he left Birmingham that the trip would end in a slaying, and that he was powerless to prevent the murder because he did not beforehand know that shots would be fired. Rowe stated that he phoned the FBI contact agents upon his return to Birmingham and later turned over his pistol to the agents.

On cross examination Murphy questioned Rowe on an alleged bribe he received from the FBI to testify, and Rowe stated that he was not bribed, and that Murphy himself had manufactured the story. Murphy also questioned Rowe regarding threats Rowe allegedly made to “kill niggers,” and about a trip to Tuscaloosa when he allegedly had a burp gun (The Russian PPSh-41 submachine gun, known as a “Burp Gun” due to the sound it made when fired. It could fire 1,000 rounds per minute) in his car. Murphy asked whether Rowe himself had insisted on “killing some niggers” on the night of the murder. Rowe repeatedly denied Murphy’s allegations. Murphy’s cross-examination of Rowe did establish to the jury that Rowe was a paid informant, and that Rowe was paid for his expenses and the information that he provided the FBI.

The presiding judge, T. Werth Thagard, allowed Murphy a wide path. In cross-examination the defense accused Leroy Moton of shooting Liuzzo to steal money from her purse. Then defense counsel Murphy intimated that Moton violated Liuzzo’s dead body.

The first witness called for the defense was Robert Shelton the imperial wizard of United Klans of America. The Second defense witness was Robert Thomas, grand dragon of the Eastview Klavern, where the accused were members. Several other defense witnesses were called and were only examined briefly, one never spoke. In the hundreds of pages of transcripts for this trial the defense’s case only takes up 10 pages.

The proceedings ended as a mistral when the all-white, all-male jury failed to reach a unanimous agreement. In 1965, it was forbidden by Alabama State Law to sit a woman as a juror. Many counties in Alabama, such as Lowndes County, drew lists of potential jurors exclusively from voter registration lists. Lowndes County was 70 percent black, however fewer than 1 percent of registered voters were black. The closet the jury came to a verdict was a 10 to 2 vote to convict on the charge of manslaughter.

The two jurors who would not convict said they could not believe FBI informant Rowe, because he violated his oath to the Klu Klux Klan. The two holdouts belonged to the White Citizens Council.

Alabama Attorney General Richmond Flowers immediately announced that there would be a retrial at the next term of the Lowndes County court in September 1965. Martin Luther King Jr. was not optimistic about the prospects for the second trial. He told reporters gathered in Selma, “I don’t think any of these men will ever be convicted,” he said. “But I am open to creative surprises.”

After the first state trial and before the second state trial, civil rights worker Jonathan Daniels, a 26-year-old white seminary student from New Hampshire, was killed in Hayneville by Tom Coleman, an unpaid Lowndes County special deputy. Daniels was shot while shielding 17-year-old activist Ruby Sales, who was being threatened by the shotgun wielding Coleman, while barring her from entering a store. Coleman then shot Father Richard F. Morrisroe, a Catholic priest, in the back as he was running away from the store.

Coleman was indicted for manslaughter in September 1965. According to media reports, the Attorney General of Alabama, Richmond Flowers, was so outraged that the grand jury had not indicted Coleman on the higher charge of murder, that he personally took over the prosecution. Flowers was considered a moderate on race for the times and the region. The trial judge refused to delay the trial until Morrisroe was well enough to testify, then removed Attorney Flowers from the case after a heated exchange in court. The defense argued that Coleman shot the victims in self-defense after seeing that the Episcopal seminarian and the priest were armed with a knife and a gun. No arms were found on the victims. On September 30, 1965, the all-white jury found Coleman “not guilty” after deliberating for only 63 minutes.

Flowers said the acquittal represented the “democratic process going down the drain of irrationality, bigotry and improper law enforcement… now those who feel they have a license to kill, destroy and cripple have been issued that license.”

Matt Murphy’s Closing Argument for the Defense Excerpts – Unofficial Transcript – Alabama v. Wilkins (2d Jud. Cir. Lowndes County, Alabama, No. 155) May 6, 1965

A partial reconstituted transcript of excerpts of Murphy’s closing summation based on combining reportage quoting Murphy from several different reporters, including those covering the trial from the Montgomery Advertiser, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Detroit Free Press,  Look, Life and Time magazines.

The closing arguments for the defense were made by defense attorney Matt Murphy, who was chief counsel for the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. The 67-minute closing, described by the Northern press as rambling and sometimes incoherent, was well noted for its strong appeal to racism.  From voir dire to the close of testimony, Murphy’s statements and examinations were replete with racial slurs that went without correction by the court nor objection by the prosecution. During his closing argument Murphy showed no restraint in his use of bigotry, anti-Semitism, racial fears and resentments to urge acquittal, not based on facts  presented in court regarding the murder of a civil rights worker from the North, but on the need to maintain a racial order in Alabama based on white supremacy.  As Murphy would acclaim to the jury with arms held up in the air during his closing statement, “I’m proud that I stand up on my feet for white supremacy.”

A verbatim transcript of Murphy’s closing presentation to the jury does not exist. As was the practice of some courts at the time, opening and closing arguments were not transcribed and made part of the official transcript, because the arguments were not legally considered evidence. The antebellum Lowndes County Courthouse in Hayneville, Alabama, built in 1828, did not have air conditioning, so the courtroom windows were kept wide-open. Reporters observed that testimony could sometimes be heard from the second story courtroom by those outside the courthouse. A parabolic antenna was brought to courthouse to pick up the sound emanating through the open windows and reporters made recordings and took notes.

Second Trial – Alabama v. Wilkins (2d Jud. Cir. Lowndes County, Alabama, No, 155), October 18-22, 1965 Transcript and Court Documents

In the second trial, as in the first, only Wilkins stood trial.

Alabama Attorney General Richmond Flowers took over the prosecution assisted by Joe Breck Gantt, Alabama’s Assistant Attorney General.

Matt Murphy was killed in a car accident three months after the first trial. He was replaced by former Birmingham mayor, former FBI agent and staunch segregationist Art Hanes as defense counsel.

The politician Hanes used a gentler approach than the Klansmen Murphy. However, the defense’s foundation was still social-racial disruption and miscegenation.

Flowers was quicker to object to sensationalistic tactics by defense counsel. Judge Thagard was more restrictive of excesses by the defense.

However, Hanes had a more friendly jury to work with then the jury drawn at the first trial. The all-white and all male jury, which included 10 present or former White Citizens Council members.

Hanes attempted to portray Rowe as a paid FBI troublemaker. Hanes questioned Rowe about a 1961 Klan attack on the Freedom Riders at the Birmingham bus depot. Hanes’ questions to Rowe elicited the information that Rowe was present at the scene, and was, at the time, working for the FBI. Hanes asked whether Rowe helped “jump on these riders,” and Rowe denied the allegation. He did state, however, that he was involved in the affray.

State murder trial transcript at 509:

Q: You worked for the FBI, and you were involved in that affray. Were you ordered by the FBI to engage in that affray and provoke a little trouble?

A: No, sir. I did that on my self reservation.

Q: You did that on your “self reservation”?

A: Self preservation.

The jury returned not guilty verdicts in less than two hours.

Relying heavily on the support of newly registered black voters, Richmond Flowers campaigned for the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1966, and in a field of twelve, came in a distant second to Lurleen Wallace. She was the first wife of Alabama Governor George Wallace, she succeeded her husband as governor because the Alabama constitution forbade consecutive gubernatorial terms.

Flowers was indicted in federal court in August 1968 of violation of the Hobbs Act, attempting “to obstruct or affect interstate commerce by committing or conspiring to commit extortion” (Hayman, 262). He was convicted on February 27, 1969 and sentenced to eight years. When his last appeal was denied he entered the federal prison in Texarkana, Texas in April 1972. He was paroled in the fall of 1974 and received a presidential pardon from Jimmy Carter in 1978.

Third Trial – US v. Eaton, Wilkins & Thomas (M.D. Ala. No. 11736-R) Transcript an++d Court Documents

The U.S. Justice Department after the second state trial sought indictments against Wilkins, Thomas, and Eaton, using a reconstruction-era law. The 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act was created to criminalize conspiracies to intimidate African Americans. It made it a felony “to conspire, to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

Federal prosecutor John Doar, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, argued that the law could be applied to the Viola Liuzzo murder, because the Selma-to-Montgomery Freedom March had been sanctioned by a federal court order after state officials tried to prevent it. After getting an indictment, the case came under the judgeship of U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., the same judge who issued the court order that forced Alabama to allow the Selma to Montgomery marches to take place. Unlike Judge Thagard in the first two state trials, Judge Johnson demanded decorum during the trial.

According to James P. Turner, author of, “Selma and the Liuzzo Murder Trials: The First Modern Civil Rights Convictions,” who was a Justice Department lawyer in the Civil Rights Division who was assigned to the Liuzzo Murder trials, Judge Johnson demanded, “strict compliance with the Constitution and federal law in civil rights cases” and who “would not tolerate” any “Matt Murphy-type shenanigans.”

Doar decided to present the case himself after tasking his staff of lawyers to research and prepare the case. Art Hanes stuck to the previous strategy of romanticizing the Klan, discrediting Rowe as a “Judas Iscariot,” and blaming civil rights activists for the violence. Before the case was given to the jury, Judge Johnson gave the jury instructions James Turner called, “the most impressive judicial performance I have ever witnessed.”

After a day of deliberations, the all-white jury told Judge Johnson that they were “hopelessly deadlocked.”  “You haven’t commenced to deliberate long enough to be hopelessly deadlocked,” the judge replied. He then gave the jury an Allen charge. Asking jurors to consider how it could be that they have reached a decision contrary to the majority.

After an additional four hours of deliberations the jury returned guilty verdicts. Afterward Judge Johnson told the jury, “If it’s worth anything to you, in my opinion, that was the only verdict you could possibly reach in this case and reach a fair and honest verdict. I could not tell you that before. It wasn’t my job.” Johnson sentenced each defendant to 10 years, the maximum sentence.

State murder cases proceeded against Eaton and Thomas, however Eaton died of a heart attack three months later the end of the federal trial. On September 26, 1966, Thomas went on trial. By this time due to the increase of registered black voters (See White v. Crook, 251 F. Supp. 401 M.D. Ala. 1966, 3-Judge Court), 8 of the 12 seated jurors were black. After 90 minutes of deliberation the jury acquitted Thomas.

After Wilkins and Thomas served their sentences, they appeared before a 1978 grand jury investigating Rowe’s involvement in other violence against civil rights workers in the 1960s. They accused Rowe of shooting Viola Liuzzo. Testimony by the two convicted Klansmen and others resulted in Rowe’s indictment for first-degree murder.

In 1975, wearing a bizarre cotton hood that resembled a Klan headpiece without the point, he gave testimony to a Senate committee that the FBI knew of his violent acts against black people.

In 1978, Alabama attorney general Bill Baxley charged Rowe with Viola Liuzzo’s murder. The indictment was thrown in 1980, because Rowe had been granted immunity from prosecution before he entered the federal witness relocation program in 1965.

Rowe died in 1998. He was buried under the name of Thomas Neal Moore, the identity the FBI established for him after he testified in 1965.

White v. Crook (M.D. Ala No. 2263-N), Briefs for the United States. (1966)

Court documents related to the federal case challenging the jury selection system in Lowndes County, Alabama, for discrimination on the basis of race and gender. Brief in Support of Intervenor’s Findings of Facts, Conclusions of Law and Decree (December, 1965), Reply Brief for Plaintiff-Intervenor United States (January, 1966), and White v. Crook, 251 F. Supp. 401 (M.D. Ala. 1966, 3-Judge Court) February 7, 1966.

White v. Crook involved the seating of a jury for Alabama State Murder second trial of Wilkins. On August 25, 1965, two plaintiffs brought this class action suit against the Lowndes County, Alabama Jury Commission. The complaint initially challenged the Alabama constitution’s complete baring of women from serving on juries under the 14th Amendment, seeking injunctive relief. The plaintiffs’ amended complaint alleged that the defendants systematically excluded African American men and all women from jury service in the county. In Lowndes County, where the population was eighty-one percent black, but no black man or woman of any race had ever been called or served on a jury. The courts refused to delay the trial until the case was resolved. John Doar, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights made arguments in court in support of the plaintiffs.

The defendants were the members and clerk of the Jury Commission of Lowndes County, Alabama; the judge for the Second Judicial Circuit of Alabama, which includes Lowndes County; the probate judge and the sheriff of Lowndes County; the solicitor and the clerk of the Second Judicial Circuit of Alabama, which includes Lowndes County; the foreman of the grand jury of Lowndes County; and the solicitor of Lowndes County.

A federal court, declared that jury service was considered to be “one of the basic rights and obligations of citizenship” and “a form of participation in the processes of government, a responsibility and a right that should be shared by all citizens, regardless of sex, invalidated an Alabama statute excluding women from juries under the Equal Protection Clause.

Ku Klux Klan Report by the House Un-American Activities Committee (1967)

The Present-Day Ku Klux Klan Movement by the Committee on Un-American Activities December 11, 1967, a report by the Committee on Un-American Activities House of Representatives Ninetieth Congress First Session. (1967)

Abstract: This report presents some of the evidence regarding modern Ku Klux Klan operations which the committee obtained because of a full-scale investigation during the 89th Congress.

To compile this evidence, the committee had to penetrate a curtain of secrecy which surrounds the innermost workings organization of a Klan relatively few Klansmen interrogated by the committee showed any willingness to violate their Klan oath to “die rather than divulge” information about the organization. The committee nevertheless gained considerable insight into the functioning of a Klan through the cooperation of those Klansmen, past and present, who were willing to testify in executive and public sessions or furnish information to committee investigators. Case studies of individuals and organizations selected as targets by Klan activists were also illuminating.

Members of the investigative staff conducted field investigations in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas, as well as in such Northern States as New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Ohio. I will not attempt to describe all of the facets pursued and difficulties encountered in the course of the intensive staff work from the time the committee approved a formal inquiry in March 1965 until the start of public hearings in October of that year. The results which are summarized in this report should demonstrate that the investigation was painstaking, thorough, and extremely productive. I would like to express at this time, however, the committee’s appreciation of the wholehearted cooperation it received from many law enforcement agencies.

Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations (Church Committee) – Excerpts

223 pages extracted from the multiple volumes of reporting of hearings of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations better known as the Church Committee.

The Liuzzo case surfaced again in 1975. In 1975, the Senate Select Committee on Governmental Operations, better known as the Church Commission, began an investigation, and directed its focus, in part, to the activities of the FBI and Gary Rowe in the civil rights movement. Rowe was deposed by the Committee in October of 1975 and testified before the Committee on December 2, 1975. The Committee issued its Final Report in April 1976. The Senate investigation revealed more information regarding the activities of the FBI and Rowe in the civil rights movement of the early 1960s.

When he appeared before the Senate Committee, Rowe testified that his initial instructions from the FBI regarding his participation in violent activities were explicitly against such participation. Rowe stated, however, that his contact agent was dissatisfied because Rowe was not reporting on the violence that the Bureau knew was occurring. Rowe was then instructed to get closer to the action groups within the Klan. Regarding his participation in violence against civil rights workers, Rowe stated that he informed his agent in advance of the violence. When asked what his instructions were, Rowe replied that the agent told him:

“We have to by law instruct you that you are not to participate in any violence. However, I know you have to do this. We know it’s something that you have to do and we understand it, and we need the information. That’s the important thing: get the information.”(Senate Committee Hearings, Vol. 6, p. 117)

Rowe testified to the Committee that he had participated in the 1961 attack on the Freedom Riders, and that the FBI knew of the planned violence three weeks in advance. In contrast to his 1965 testimony, Rowe stated to the Committee that he had made a trip to Tuscaloosa, and that he had been arrested with various types of weapons in his car. Rowe further stated that although he had reported on “high dozens” of incidents of planned violence, to his knowledge, the FBI prevented only two of the incidents.

Includes:

Church Committee Hearings on the FBI November 18, 19, December 2, 3, 9, 10, And 11, 1975 – Excerpts. Includes the testimony of Gary Rowe before the Committee.

Church Committee Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans Book II Final Report of the Select Committee – Excerpts April 26, 1976

Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans Book III Final Report of the Select Committee – Excerpt – Covers Gary Rowe an FBI informant in the Ku Klux Klan. The use of intelligence informants to report Klan violence and criminal activity. The scope of Rowe’s reporting. The issue of participation in criminal or violent activity

FBI Charter Proposals and the Attorney General’s Domestic Intelligence Guidelines Congressional Hearings – Excerpts (1977)

FBI Statutory Charter Congressional Hearings (1978)

Reporting on the sections of the hearings that largely covered Gary Rowe. These hearing lead to the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility Task Force investigation.

Office of Professional Responsibility July 1979 Task Force Report on Gary Thomas Rowe, Jr.

A 317-page report completed in July 1979 by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. In October 1982, the Justice Department lost a Freedom of Information suit filed by Playboy magazine and the report was released. The report says the FBI covered up the violent activities of their informant, Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.  In the report Justice Department investigators said agents protected Mr. Rowe because the informant “was simply too valuable to abandon.”

On July 12, 1978, Senators Edward M. Kennedy and James Abourezk sent a joint letter to the Department of Justice stating that the Senate Judiciary Committee was ‘intensely interested” in receiving a full report on an investigation into allegations that Mr. Gary Thomas Rowe, Jr., committed a violent crime while a government informant.

On July 8, 9, and 11, 1978, the New York Times had published reports that Gary Thomas Rowe, Jr., had taken part in violent crimes with Klansmen while working with the FBI as an informant within the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham from 1960 to 1965. In particular, the Times reported that in 1963, Rowe shot an unidentified black man, and was told by his handling FBI agent to keep quiet about it.

ABC television had also shown in July 1978, a two-part documentary suggesting that Rowe fired the bullet which killed Viola Liuzzo, and that he gave “indications of deception” when he told a polygrapher in 1978 that he had not fired into Viola Liuzzo’s car. ABC also reported that Collie Leroy Wilkins gave a “truthful response” when he told a polygrapher that Rowe had fired toward the Liuzzo car in 1965.

On October 24, 1978, Attorney General Griffin B. Bell created a special task force of four attorneys to investigate and report on the following matters:

(1) Whether FBI personnel acted improperly in handling Mr. Gary Thomas Rowe while he served as a Bureau informant within the United Klans of America (UKA); (2) Whether Civil Rights Division attorneys, who tried United States v. Eaton, et al. (the federal civil rights case arising out of the highway murder of Mrs. Viola Liuzzo), were aware of Mr. Rowe’s alleged unreliability, or suspected he was unreliable; and (3) Whether there is any evidence to substantiate the allegation that Mr. Rowe was responsible for the death of Mrs. Viola Liuzzo, to the extent this is possible without prejudicing the rights of Mr. Rowe or the State of Alabama in view of Mr. Rowe’s recent state indictment for the murder.

Gary Rowe testified at all three trials, and related both the background of his involvement with the Ku Klux Klan and the FBI, and his version of the events which took place on March 25. Rowe testified that he was approached by an FBI agent in 1960 or 1961 and was asked to infiltrate the Klan. His duties, he stated, were to “keep up with” any violent actions, and to report to the FBI on the men whom he met in his undercover work.

Playboy Enterprises v. US Dept. of Justice, 516 F. Supp. 233 (D.D.C. 1981) – Citation

US District Court for the District of Columbia – 516 F. Supp. 233 (D.D.C. 1981) March 31, 1981. The case that lead to the release of Office of Professional Responsibility July 1979 Task Force Report on Gary Thomas Rowe, Jr.

Liuzzo v. United States, 485 F.Supp. 1274 (1980), 508 F. Supp. 923 (E.D. Mich. 1981) and 640 (E.D. Mich. 1983) – Citations

Liuzzo v. United States, 485 F.Supp. 1274 (1980) February 29, 1980. United States District Court, E. D. Michigan, S. D.; Liuzzo v. United States U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan – 508 F. Supp. 923 (E.D. Mich. 1981) February 25, 1981 and Liuzzo v. United States, 565 F. Supp. 640 (E.D. Mich. 1983) May 27, 1983.

The Liuzzo Family filed a lawsuit for damages and liability, complaining that the FBI was negligent in the death of Viola Liuzzo due to its relationship with Gary Thomas Rowe Jr., under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) and court proceedings took place from 1981 through 1983.

On May 27, 1983, Judge Charles Wycliffe Joiner rejected the claims in the Liuzzo family lawsuit, saying there was “no evidence the FBI was in any type of joint venture with Rowe or conspiracy against Mrs. Liuzzo. Rowe’s presence in the car was the principal reason why the crime was solved so quickly.”  In August 1983, the FBI was awarded $79,873 in court costs, but costs were later reduced to $3,645 after the ACLU appealed on behalf of the family.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Compliance with the Attorney General’s Investigative Guidelines (2005)

A 2005 U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General report on investigative guidelines including the use of confidential informants. Includes mention of Gary Thomas Rowe, Jr.

FBI Files

FBI files related to the Viola Liuzzo-Civil Rights Worker Murder Trials

John Doar FBI Files – Files mostly consist of an applicant-type investigation of Doar. When he was promoted to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the White Houses called for an updated background check on Doar. In one memo an agent noted with Doar it had been “necessary for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Evans to straighten him out on at least two occasions,” after complaining about the bureau’s slow response to requests related to civil rights violations.

FBI File Matthew H. Murphy Jr. Headquarters File 157-2901 – Contains a basic background report on Murphy. – A basic background file on Alabama Klu Klux Kan “Klonsel” Matthew H. Murphy Jr.

FBI March 26, 1965 and March 27, 1965 Statements about Selma March & Liuzzo Murder. – FBI March 26, 1965 Statement “March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, March 21 – 25, 1965” and FBI March 27, 1965 Statement “Murder of Viola Liuzzo Lowndes County, Alabama, March 25, 1965.”

Statement of John Lewis to the FBI – March 11, 1965 – John Lewis gave this statement to an FBI agent about being assaulted on the Edmund Pettus Bridge while marching in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, “Bloody Sunday.” He received a head injury in the melee. Lewis, representing the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), led the march alongside Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

FBI Photographs of Bloody Sunday, Selma March, March 7, 1965 – 238 photographs on 6 contact sheets. These photographs taken by FBI special agents show Alabama State troopers, deputies and posse members involved in tear gassing and the dispersal of approximately 625 marchers in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. Each contact sheet includes photographs from one roll of film. Descriptions of the pictures and the name of the agent who took them are included after each sheet.

FBI Memorandums Summarizing Bloody Sunday – Dating from 3/10/1965 to 3/12/1965 – One memo to Mr. Belmont from A. Rosen criticized the violent actions of Alabama State Troopers, with no provocation, against the protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965. It gives detailed information on the events that occurred on what came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”

Letter from Alice Guillemette to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover with Response – 3/13/1965 – In this letter, Alice Guillemette of Massachusetts asks FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover “whether or not you agree with your FBI agent, Mr. James M. Barbo of Mobile, Ala. that you think the State Troopers acted in the interest of public safety by tear-gassing Negro marchers last Sunday at Selma, Ala.”

FBI Memorandum Regarding Special Agent James Barko – 3/16/1965 – This memo identifies James M. Barko as the FBI special agent reported to have “testified that he thought state troopers acted in the public interest by breaking up the march with tear gas” in the Washington, D.C. newspaper “The Evening Star.”

Film – Universal Newsreel Volume 38, Issue 22; 3/15/1965

The first segment in this newsreel is The Selma Story. Released 10 days before the murder, this newsreel reports on the impact of “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965, when marchers tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, just outside of Selma, Alabama, on their way to Montgomery Alabama, in demonstration for voter registration.

The other segments are “Dutch Princess to Wed Commoner” and “Constance Bennett Back in Movies.”