Show Notes
In 1965, a car full of klansmen shot and killed Viola Liuzzo, a white woman from Detroit who volunteered to drive civil rights activists back to Selma after the march to Montgomery. The FBI immediately kicked into overdrive to drag her name through the mud.
Sources:
Stanton, Mary. From Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998
Mendelsohn, Jack. The martyrs : sixteen who gave their lives for racial justice. Harper & Row 1966
https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/micheal-schwerner-james-chaney-andrew-goodman https://famous-trials.com/mississippi-burningtrial/1978-barnetteconfession https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/schwerner-michael/ http://repository.wustl.edu/concern/videos/7p88cm77s https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-long-not-long-speech-text/ https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-edition-september-10-2017-1.4280530/daughter-of-civil-rights-worker-murdered-in-selma-on-racism-white-supremacy-and-her-mother-s-legacy-1.4280754 https://archive.org/details/martyrssixteenwh00mend/page/176/mode/2up See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
More from Weird Little Guys
A final look at the Pioneer Fund's attempt to use racist pseudoscience to overturn the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision.
We're revisiting two classic Weird Little Guys episodes from last year about a white nationalist political party's attempt to get their candidate on the ballot. Third Position Original air date: 8/21/25 In 2012, a newly formed white nationalist political party tried to get their candidate on the ballot. The American Third Position Party wanted Americans to vote for Merlin Miller, but how did the party end up picking him? Sources: https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federalelections2012.pdf#page=11 https://irehr.org/2018/06/14/what-is-the-american-freedom-party/ https://www.ocregister.com/2009/09/04/two-time-felon-runs-pro-white-political-group/ https://rosecityantifa.org/articles/meet-the-oregon-chapter-of-the-american-freedom-party-part-one/ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/will-la-elect-a-ron-paul_b_104053 https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2013/08/two-american-freedom-party-leaders-speak-out-about-their-party/ https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d284 https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/middle-east/six-day-war-liberty.html A Secret Third Thing Original air date: 8/28/25 After the 2012 election, the American Third Position Party rebranded. Not because their candidate lost, they expected that. But probably because their candidate didn't know what the party's name meant. Sources: https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federalelections2012.pdf https://politicalresearch.org/2016/12/19/what-third-position https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/neofascism-european-style/ https://www.alternet.org/2008/07/surviving_a_weekend_with_americas_premiere_pro-white_activist_group# https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2016/10/18/former-mpd-chief-drue-lackey-dead-90/92349168/ Winkler, Martin M. Arminius the Liberator: Myth and Ideology. Oxford University Press, 2016. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In the first level of Knowledge Fight Country, Dan and his guest adventurer Molly Conger set out to understand the context around Tucker Carlson's interview with a welder who is mad about algebra. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A closer look at one of the men on the Pioneer Fund's team of scientists for segregation reveals that he wasn't a scientist at all.
Last week, the DOJ's Civil Rights division announced they were moving to dismiss more than 50 desegregation cases against school districts all over the country. Like the weird little guys trying to overturn the Brown v Board of Education decision in the 1960s, the Trump administration is trying to take us all back to a version of America they think was great.