City Launches Effort To Improve Detroit's Viola Liuzzo Park

DETROIT (AP) - Detroit officials say they are spending about $1 million to improve a Detroit park named for a mother slain while shuttling demonstrators after the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.

The city held a groundbreaking Tuesday with the Viola Liuzzo Park Association. They are sprucing up the park created in the 1970s in Liuzzo's honor.

It's part of an effort to improve 40 Detroit parks and playgrounds.

Liuzzo was a 39-year-old nursing student at Wayne State University when she drove to Alabama to support the civil rights movement. She was struck in the head by shots fired from a car. Her black passenger, 19-year-old Leroy Moton, was wounded.

Three Ku Klux Klan members were convicted in Liuzzo's death.

Mayor Mike Duggan says in a statement the park "honors ... her sacrifice."

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