Lesson Plan: White Allies Killed During the Civil Rights Movement

Brief Historical Statement

Several white Americans were killed during the civil rights movement because they chose to stand publicly with Black communities in the struggle for justice. Rev. James Reeb, a white Unitarian minister from Boston, traveled to Selma after “Bloody Sunday” and was beaten by white segregationists; he died two days later. Viola Liuzzo, a white mother from Detroit, was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan while driving marchers between Selma and Montgomery. Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, two young white activists from New York, were murdered alongside James Chaney, a Black activist, during Freedom Summer in Mississippi.

Their deaths exposed th ...