Viola Liuzzo was a housewife, mother of five, NAACP member, and human cicil rights activist who lived in Detroit. In March of 1965, she heeded the call of Martin Luther King Jr and traveled from Michigan to Alabama. She participated in the successful Selma to Montgomery marches and helped with co-ordination and logistics. Driving back from a trip shuttling fellow activists to the Montgomery airport, she was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan on this day in 1965. She was just 39 years old. Roughly 350 people attended Liuzzo’s funeral in Detroit, including Martin Luther King Jr., UAW President Walter P. Reuther and Jimmy Hoffa of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.