Home of the Brave

The name of Viola Liuzzo may not be familiar today, but nearly four decades ago she occupied a central place in the American psyche as the only white woman murdered during the height of the Civil Rights movement--fatally shot while transporting a black teenager named Leroy Moton on a lonely Alabama highway following the historic voter registration march in Selma. Ahead of her time, Liuzzo was not afraid to challenge the conservative limitations that American society placed on women and minorities; indeed, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI conducted an outrageous smear campaign against Liuzzo after her murder, largely due to the uncomfortable fact that an undercover FBI informant was among the men responsible for her death (in addition, the Liuzzo family was harassed for the longest time by hostile neighbors who called them derogatory names and threw garbage and stones at their home). Paola di Florio's compassionate documentary pays tribute to Liuzzo's bravery while also focusing on how her family has struggled to embrace her legacy, following her now-adult daughter Mary on a pilgrimage back to Selma, where she meets people who knew Liuzzo in her final days, and visiting a son, Tony, whose disgust with the U.S. government led him to join a fringe militia group. A long-overdue tribute to Liuzzo's life and sacrifice, this extraordinary work of documentary filmmaking is highly recommended. Editor's Choice. [Note: DVD extras include four deleted scenes (28 min.), Viola Liuzzo’s FBI file, a state-by-state civil rights timeline, a photo-memorabilia-propaganda gallery, liner notes by New Yorker staff writer Hilton Als, and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a powerful doc.] (P. Hall)