Jan. 27, 2004

Home of the Brave

By James Greenberg

Sundance Film Festival

PARK CITY -- You would think that Viola Liuzzo, the only white woman murdered in the civil rights movement, would have an esteemed place in American history. But not only has she been forgotten, she has been slandered by the country she loved and tried to protect. Now Paola di Florio's moving documentary "Home of the Brave" tries to set the record straight. It is a film that should be required viewing by all citizens, especially students, if we hope not to repeat this awful chapter.

Like fellow Sundance hit "Heir to an Execution," about the execution of the Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, "Brave" focuses on the impact of historical events on the family of the victim. Liuzzo was the mother of five children when, after watching news accounts of Bloody Sunday, was compelled by her conscience to travel from her home in Detroit to Selma, Ala., to participate in the voter registration drive. While shuttling workers from Selma to Montgomery, she was gunned down in her car.

Although three killers, members of the Ku Klux Klan, were swiftly arrested, it wasn't long before the FBI started to leak compromising information about Liuzzo. Her husband was a highly placed member of the Teamsters and an intimate of Jimmy Hoffa's. J. Edgar Hoover had branded him a "a known Teamster strongman with Mafia connections." To discredit his slain wife, Hoover suggested that she had been sleeping with black civil rights workers and taking drugs. All of this may have been a smoke screen to cover the fact that an FBI informant could have committed the crime as well as other acts of violence.

Liuzzo's killing left deep scars on her children, seen in wrenching news interviews soon after and today as they still try to process the events. Perhaps more than anything, the film is an attempt to give them some closure on things they could never understand.

Mary, the middle daughter, sets out on a pilgrimage to Selma, retracing her mother's steps, visiting the site of the murder and interviewing people who remember Viola. Newsreel footage of the march and police beatings brings it all back home for anyone who was alive then or cares about justice is this country. Barry McGuire's period hit song "Eve of Destruction" heightens the visceral power of the images.

Tony, the youngest son, has spent a lifetime trying to honor his mother's legacy. Now living in the backwoods of Michigan, this sensitive, caring man has become a militia member as an expression of his disenfranchisement from a government that would betray his mother as it had. Di Florio, while not sharing his politics, offers a rare sympathetic insight into why someone becomes a fringe member of society.

Another son, Tom, has gone even further off the beaten track: He has disappeared into the backcountry of Georgia and communicates with the family only through an intermediary.

When Mary visits an Alabama polling place during the 2000 presidential election and still encounters indifference toward black voting rights, one can only be amazed and disheartened at how little things have changed since Liuzzo's murder 39 years ago. Di Florio has seamlessly woven together the strands of past tragedy and contemporary ramifications into a film that is stingingly personal and universal at the same time.