Home of the Brave

2003 Documentary

Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Paola di Florio directs Home of the Brave, a documentary about the impact of Viola Liuzzo's murder. Detroit housewife and mother of five, Liuzzo was a civil rights activist who went to Alabama to help with voter registration in 1965. She was in town during the pivotal march organized by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which ended in violence at the Edmund Pettus Bridge near Selma. While trying to transport the tear-gased marchers in her car, she was shot by three members of the Ku Klux Klan. Suspects Eugene Thomas, Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr., and William Orville Eaton were found guilty of civil rights violations and later acquitted. The film also explores the FBI investigation in the aftermath of her death, as well as the reaction in the Liuzzo home. Home of the Brave was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 as part of the documentary competition.~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide