Good evening. My name is tony green. I am the Vice President for programs and National Outreach at the National Constitution center. I want to welcome you. Today, we are spending a lot of time marking the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights act. Were looking at it through the lens of one woman, viola liuzzo, who died in the Civil Rights Movement. Upstairs, and im sure all of you have been to the National ConstitutionCenter Exhibit space, we have something called the American National tree, which has the stories of 100 people. And two of the people on there, at least, are heroes of the Civil Rights Movement and the battle to get to the Voting Rights act, and they are viola liuzzo and john lewis, who is supposed to be here tonight, but unfortunately is stuck in washington for votes. Gary may, who has written a very readable, interesting, and compelling book, is with us tonight to talk about the fbis role in Viola Liuzzos murder, the ku klux klan, and the other factors that led to why were here tonight. Gary may, thank you. Mr. May thank you, tony. Thank you, betsy. Thank you, everyone at the National Constitution center, for inviting me here tonight. I thank you all for coming. This has been an extraordinary summer for americans interested in the Civil Rights Movement and its history and in the cause of justice. On june 1, the body of emmett till was exhumed for autopsy. Im sure youre aware emmett till was a young, chicago teenager who went to money, mississippi, a small town, to visit his uncle and cousins in the summer of 1955. Were not entirely sure what happened there. He may have flirted with a young 21yearold woman named Carolyn Bryant, the owner of a Small Grocery store. He may have also whistled at her. We do know that, not long after that, till was kidnapped from his uncles home in the middle of the night by two men, at least two men, and tortured and murdered. A cotton gin fan was tied around his neck, and his body was thrown into the Tallahatchie River by his killers, who i guess hoped that the body would rest there forever. But, as the body decomposed, releasing gases, the body floated to the top and was discovered. His killers were arrested and tried. There were Carolyn Bryants husband and his half brother. They were found not guilty after the jury deliberated for less than an hour. One juror said that they would have reached a decision even sooner, but they stopped to have a soda. The body now has been returned to tills grave. Whether it will produce any Additional Information to help the Justice Department, which has reopened the case, is still unclear. It is thought that there were more than two people involved in tills murder. Its been suggested as well that perhaps that Carolyn Bryant was there. She is still alive. The other two men are gone. So, this is still an ongoing case. On june 21, edgar ray killen, a former klansman, was convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of three civil rights workers in 1964, james chaney, michael schwerner, and andrew goodman. So this is a process now of going back and looking at these cold cases, been going on for about a decade. Its what David Halberstam calls little nurembergs, pursuing those who committed terrible crimes during the Civil Rights Era and trying to bring them to justice, no matter how far in the past those crimes occurred. The forgotten case is that of viola liuzzo. She was an extraordinary woman, a 39yearold homemaker and mother of five, who answered Martin Luther kings call to participate in the Voting Rights march from selma to montgomery in late march, 1965. At the conclusion of the march, she was working with a colleague in the transportation unit. She and her colleague were stopped at a stoplight near the Edmund Pettis bridge and discovered that a car was behind her. When they took off, the car followed them. The car contained four members of the alabama ku klux klan who had spent the day traveling around observing the marchers, observing the last day of the march and kings speech, hoping to have an opportunity to assault a civil rights worker. And at around 7 30 that night, march 25, 1965, they found the target they were looking for. They followed viola liuzzo and her companion. A highspeed chase ensued. Finally, the klansmens car pulled around and they shot into Viola Liuzzos car. She was killed instantly. The car went off the road and finally came to rest in a field. Incredibly, her companion was unharmed and was able to make his way to safety. What is extraordinary about this case is not only that her sacrifice, and that of others who lost their lives during the Voting Rights march, and helped to accelerate the passage of the Voting Rights act, what is furthermore more unique about the case is that, unlike the till case or the case of the three civil rights workers or others, an fbi informant was in the car. He was one of the klansmen. And this is what my book, the informant, is about. It is about Gary Thomas Rowe. Tommy rowe, as his friends called him. And how he became an fbi informant and what led him after a fiveyear career as an informant to that automobile and to the murder of viola liuzzo. Why would the fbi select tommy rowe as an informant . Rowe was 26 years old. He was a selfproclaimed hell raiser, brawler, a bouncer in a bar. Someone who really had one dream, and that was to become a Police Officer. But he had never graduated high school, so didnt meet the minimum requirement to become a Police Officer in alabama. He actually applied to become a county sheriff, falsified his application, claiming that he had graduated from high school. They caught it, and he was rejected. But rowe yearned, burned really, to become a Police Officer and became a cop wannabe. He palled around with police in birmingham, partied with them, rode in their squad cars at night. And at the same time he was also friendly with members of the klan. Some of the policemen were also members of the klan. Rowe did not want to become a klansmen. He thought it was silly. He said, if i wanted to bust somebody i would not have to hide behind a hood to do it. Id just go right up and do it. For the fbi, he seemed to be the ideal candidate. He was young, he was tough, and, moreover, he was extremely willing. An fbi agent visited him in the spring of 1960 and asked him if he would serve his country by becoming an fbi informant. It did not take much onvincing. This was the greatest moment of rowes life. All he wanted to be was a Police Officer. Now he was being asked by the fbi to become an informant. The agent made it clear to him that he was not an agent and that, if he broke the law, he would be arrested like any criminal, but rowe saw his role in a more romantic way. A kind of redneck james bond who was going to become an undercover agent inside the klan, and thats exactly what rowe became. The fbi had instructed him not to become involved in violence, not be in the planning of the stages of even aviolent event, but rowe quickly learned that that was impossible and the fbi recognized it, too. One of his fbi contacts said, look, you may find yourself in the middle of a riot and you may have to throw a punch or two and we understand. Which was fine with rowe, because he enjoyed a good fight probably more than anything else. So rowe went into the klan and quickly rose up within it. What is so extraordinary is, looking at his record during this fiveyear period and his relationship with the fbi, you would have thought that if an informant got involved in violence that the fbi would be concerned about that, in fact critical of that, but the opposite was true. They understood that in order to protect his cover and in order to convince the klansmen that he was an authentic klansman, he would have to commit violence. Furthermore, the more accepted he was, he would rise up even urther inside the klan group or klavern, as they called it, and therefore be in a position to get important information. Probably the first dramatic incident that rowe was involved in was the attack on the freedom riders, who came to birmingham in may of 1961. In fact, rowe had now, just after a year in the klan, become so important that the Birmingham Police force, which wanted the freedom riders to receive a beating, turned to rowe to actually set it up. So, rowe the fbi informant became the liaison between the Birmingham Police and the ku klux klan. Rowe was told that bull connor, the Infamous Police commissioner and birmingham, wanted the freedom riders to receive a beating they would always remember. They would have, the klan would have 15 minutes to do anything that they wanted. There would not be a cop anywhere around. After 15 minutes, they should et out of there. Well, rowe was right in the thick of the fight, attacking the freedom riders and also beating there is a picture in the book of him. A birmingham postherald newspaper photographer captured rowe actually beating a man who was not a freedom rider but had just come to the bus station to pick up his fiancee. He was in the wrong place at he wrong time. Rowe reported to the fbi that the attack was coming. The fbi did not intervene. To be fair to the fbi, their position was they were not a protective organization. They were an investigative organization. If a federal law was being violated, then they could step in. In the case of the freedom riders, i cannot accept that explanation because, after all, the buses were crossing state lines. Interstate travel, a federally supervised activity, was involved. But at least that was the bureaus justification. Were they angry at rowe for what he had done that day, as was illustrated on the front page of the birmingham postherald . Absolutely not. In fact, rowe received a bonus of 150 and washington was nformed by the special agent in charge of the Birmingham Field Office that rowe was the most active, most intelligent, and the most reliable informant they had inside the klan. Rowe spent the next several years in this kind of activity, attacking blacks, civil rights workers, and, again, the fbi not only accepted this but really encouraged this. There is some evidence, too, that rowe may have been involved in perhaps the most infamous act of the 1960s, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in birmingham in september of 1963. The evidence is a little sketchy here, but it seems that ll of rowes friends knew that the bomb was being planted. Apparently, the klansmen thought that the bomb would go off in the middle of the night when the building was vacant. Of course, they were not very good bomb makers, and the bomb went off the following morning, tragically killing four young girls. Everyone knew that a bomb was being planted, and rowe later claimed he had no knowledge of it. I just dont find that credible. Rowe knew all the men involved. In fact, throughout 1962 and 1963, when bombs went off in birmingham, so frequently that the city became known as bombingham, rowe was always the first one to report a bombing to his fbi contact. Later, when rowe was being investigated by the Justice Department, his fbi contacts were asked, didnt you think it peculiar that rowe would be the first one to report a bombing . Perhaps he had something to do with it. The agents would reply, oh, no, we just thought he was being a good citizen. All this then brought rowe to march 1965 and the Voting Rights march. That night, he was in the car. He later said that he did not fire his gun, and when he later, after the shooting and rowe was able to get away from the klansmen, he immediately called his fbi contact. They met in the middle of the night in an empty parking lot in the middle of a rainstorm. The agent examined rowes gun, concluded it had not been fired, and pretty much accepted rowes version of events. They happened on liuzzo and her companion, chased them down, shot in the car, and perhaps killed her. The next day, the klansmen were arrested. It was an extraordinary moment. Lyndon johnson had become so interested in the case that, when he first heard about the murder on the night of march 25, he immediately called j. Edgar hoover and wanted information. He continued to call the bureau throughout the night. Then he was told the following morning by j. Edgar hoover that they had, the fbi had, one of their men inside the car. Hoover misrepresented rowes role. He said that rowe did not have a gun and that he had just been along for the ride and was not involved. Ohnson was very excited that the murderers were identified, and he announced their arrest over nationwide television, broke into the regularly scheduled broadcasting and president johnson and j. Edgar hoover and attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach were there and johnson announced the arrest of the klansmen. At that point, he included Gary Thomas Rowe as one of the suspects, but rowe was not arrested. He was not in jail. He was, in fact, working with the fbi in building a case against his fellow klansmen. Rowe quickly made a deal with the Justice Department. In fact, he demanded it. Clearly, his testimony in court would be absolutely critical. He was the only eyewitness to the tragedy. So rowe made a number of demands. He wanted his exwife and children relocated to another state to protect them. He wanted a new identity. He wanted a lifetime career in law enforcement, and the fbi accepted each one of his demands. Rowe testified against the klansmen at their trials. One of the klansmen died of a heart attack before going to trial. The other two were found not guilty by local alabama courts. Eventually, however, they were tried for having violated her civil rights and found guilty. In each of those trials, rowe was the star witness. Rowe was rewarded for his testimony. He was given 10,000 in cash and told by his agents that j. Edgar hoover thought he was one of the great americans alive and that this money was from the director and that rowe would be relocated to san diego, california, he would become a deputy u. S. Marshal. So you would think that this, again, would sort of be one of a happy moment for rowe, but he could change his name and he was given a new name but he could not change his character. The death of viola liuzzo was, of course, devastating for her family. The family literally fell apart. The children left school. One became involved in some petty crime. Another, dependence on drugs and alcohol. One actually moved to alabama, not far from where his mother was killed. In fact, he is still living in alabama to this day. Rowes time as a deputy u. S. Marshal was very short. As i said, he could change his name, but he could not change his character. He got involved in lots of fights. He liked to pull his gun on people. He enjoyed stopping Police Officers and pulling his gun on them. Finally, the u. S. Marshals service just had it with rowe, and he was fired. He wandered around the country for a couple of years, doing some private detective work, and, during this period, kind of built up tremendous and i think incorrect animosity toward the Justice Department and the fbi, blaming them for what had happened to him. In truth, the fbi had been pretty good to him, had rescued him from a sort of ordinary life as a machinist in 1960 and given him this fabulous career. Finally, rowe went public. He appeared before the Church Committee in december of 1975. The Church Committee was investigating the excesses of the fbi and cia during the 1960s and 1970s. Rowe told his story. He talked about the attack on the freedom riders and how the bureau had known it was coming nd had done nothing. He talked about getting information from the klan. The best way, he said, was sleeping with klan wives, and i think he said he had slept with 40 or 50 klan wives during his time as an fbi informant, a tremendous exaggeration. In fact, after rowe testified about this, a number of klan wives in birmingham got very upset. One actually went to the press and said, my daughter is asking me, did you sleep with tommy rowe . And i didnt and i have talked to my friends they say they didnt, so i dont know what he s talking about. Rowe became a celebrity as a result of his appearance before the Church Committee. By the way, he wore a hood to disguise his identity. But, as i say, he became famous now. He was offered a book contract, nd he wrote his memoir, or actually he allowed the memoir to be written by a ghostwriter. The memoir was bought by columbia pictures and turned into a madefortv movie, which was shown later in the 1970s. He was on the today show and pretty much made the circuit. The liuzzo family was, of course, stunned to learn of rowes activities as an fbi informant. They thought initially that he had been a hero. He had come out of hiding as an informant, testified publicly in a number of trials, including the federal trial, but now they learned he had been involved in the attack on the freedom riders and possibly involved in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. And they came to believe that rowe had actually fired the shot that killed their mother. So they launched a wrongful death lawsuit in the 1980s against the fbi. I am not going to tell you how it turned out because i do not want to spoil your reading pleasure, hopefully. The story that i tell in the book and rowes experience i think raises some extremely important questions. As i was working on the book, the tragedy of 9 11 occurred, and the president began to speak about the need for more human intelligence, more informants to penetrate terrorist groups. It seemed to me in researching and then writing about tommy rowe that using informants was a very dangerous business. As i have indicated, in order protect their cover, in order to convince their fellow terrorists that they were authentic, they had to be involved in violence. And rowes experience showed that the fbi had encouraged this and was, in effect, accessory to these various crimes. It seems to me that if we try to do that in the war against terrorism we might well achieve the same kinds of results, informants operated by the fbi or cia actually committing the very violence they are supposed to prevent. The liuzzo story, the rowe story i think is very important, and im hoping that at least the book will help to get this story out and that it will become part of the debate about how to fight the war against terrorism. Thank you. Id be happy to take your questions. Mr. May yes . Did the did fbi informants actually prevent any kind of Violent Crimes by this method . Mr. May yes, and, in fact, to be fair to rowe, he did on at least one occasion. Rowe in 1962 learned of an assassination plot against reverend fred shuttlesworth, who was the Martin Luther king of birmingham. Rowe passed this information on to his fbi contact because rowe was actually one of the men selected to assassinate the reverend shuttlesworth. The bureau paused. They were always afraid of doing something that might reveal rowes identity, but a mans life was at stake here. So they finally decided they had to do something, and so they met with reverend shuttlesworth and warned him against going to an Airport Restaurant where shuttlesworth was going to try to desegregate it because that is where the assassination was going to take place. Shuttlesworth was very grateful. He did not go there that night, and he is still alive today. Occasionally, the fbi would act on the information and would prevent violence. But in rowes case, it seems to have been rare that the bureau actually prevented violence from occurring. I wish i could be more confident about the thousands of other people who became informants inside the klan. I cant because historians, journalists interested in this subject cant get access to informant files the fbi. They are exempt from the freedom of information act. The fbi guards those records very, very carefully for obvious reasons, for what it reveals about their complicity in so many events. I was fortunate because, in the case of the liuzzo murder and the later wrongful death lawsuit, the liuzzo family attorney received rowes informant files from the fbi through the discovery process. The lawyer, dean robb, was kind enough to give me access to those records. So at least i can tell you of one case where rowe actually prevented violence, but i cant speak about the thousands of thers. Is rowe still alive, and, if so, did you also have contact with him when you were preparing the book . Mr. May rowe died in 1998. He spent his last years in savannah, georgia, where he was born, working for a private detective firm. It is said that he died of natural causes, although i managed to locate one of rowes children from a very early marriage and she told me that she thought her father had been murdered. The story she told me was so incredible. He had been working as a private detective. He had come across some evidence that a savannah politician had been involved in a murder, and, in order to keep him quiet, he had been murdered. I tried to trace this down. You wont find the story in the book. My editor said, well, you cant prove it, so you better not include it in the book. I did talk with an Investigative Reporter at the savannah morning news, and he looked into the story and is still looking into it. His conclusion is that rowe probably died of a heart attack, but there are some odd things he has discovered about rowes death. The autopsy report is missing. It should still exist. The night that rowe died, a number of police and county sheriffs appeared at his house, more than would be there in the case of a normal fatality. He thinks that rowe may have been involved in something. And they had records and the police were there to get that record. Did they know his identity . Ay just about everybody did this in town. Thomas neil moore, he was this was the first name of his favorite fbi handler who lives in a suburb of philadelphia. He became a kind of local character. Yes . Did you have any contact with Viola Liuzzos son who moved to alabama and what prompted him to go there . Mr. May well, her son tom was probably the closest of her children, the closest to her mother than anyone else and have become very emotionally troubled after the death. I couldnt contact him. I couldnt find him. Im not sure the family knows precisely where he is today. I did talk to one of her other sons. The son joined the michigan militia in the 1980s. He gave a very frank and candid interview. Yes, sir. On balance, im not sure, did this man do a lot more good than harm . Mr. May im not sure myself. I should really take a position, i think, on this. I would have to conclude that he probably did more harm than good. The reverend shuttlesworth might disagree with me. But certainly, as i say, the information was so it does not seem to of been worth the trouble he caused. And in fact rowe himself said in his later years it was probably unnecessary to infiltrate the clan. The klan. He said, there are probably a dozen people who were the most dangerous, and if the fbi had kept them under surveillance, so much could have been prevented and it wasnt really necessary to infiltrate the klan. We have a perception of what theklan was like, and this group i studied was like a combination of the keystone cops and the manson family. They were capable of all sorts of things, but some of them were vicious killers. It does not seem like the fbi has much of a history until today. Mr. May i think the historian has not got to look at the entire record. After viola liuzzo was killed, the ones who searched for the killers these were firstrate people. They were not racist like jager hoover was. They are serious investigators. J edgar hoover was. We have to be fair. I think the higher up one went in the bureau, you found the more Serious Problems especially in hoover himself. You called hoover racist. Did your research reveal, can you talk about what your research may have revealed in terms of the relationship between lbj and hoover . Were they using each other for different purposes . Mr. May thats a wonderful question. We have now a rich resource. He had machinery and telephones all over the place. You really hear himself expressing himself very frankly. You see that not only was lbj taping hoover, he was taping lbj. They had an interesting relationship. They had known each other for a long time. Johnson first went to washington in 1949. Hoover himself was a young director of the fbi. For a time, i think they lived across the street from one another. Lbj also recognized that hoover was a man you could not cross. I suppose on one hand you would love to have gotten rid of hoover was the longestserving director of the fbi in history, probably one of the longest serving federal bureaucrats, but you couldnt. Johnson couldnt. Kennedy had thought of doing that, but he knew that hoover had so much stuff in his file about president johnson. Some of hoover of us fifth most Sensitive Files burned by his private secretary after his death. I think that they did use one another. Certainly, hoover wanted johnson to protect him him his critics, to allow him, as johnson did, to let his empire grow, and at the same time, johnson used to over, knowing he was at least in his 60s, one of the most respected men in the, wolf. Its only later we have revelations about what that was about. Every boy growing up at one time or another at the time that tommy rowe became an informant, one of the most popular movies was about the fbi with james stewart. Do have the feeling that rowe needed to be rescued from himself . It seems the fbi created more of a monster because it sounds like he might have been very powerhungry. The fbi is feeding his ego. Mr. May the fbis did feed his ego and they wanted him to rise up within the clan. The klan. Yet they recognize he could be someone difficult to troll. As he became such an important informant and his contact agents would retire from the bureau and the replacements would be selected. They would recognize that their own careers as fbi agents depended on their ability to cultivate informants. You have someone retiring, selecting his successor and the successor saying, i sure hope you are going to like me. I think youll like me. We had coffee. I think we will get along fine. Its a fascinating relationship. Its one of the most interesting things in the book. In some cases, theres a close relationship. He was broken up. He was falling apart. They say, tommy, you got to stay. You are doing a great job for the country. I am not sure rowe was entirely serious about leaving the informants role because it was so much fun. The informant role because it was so much fun. Yes . Can you comment after out of the fbi undercover activities compared to other spy organizations . Mr. May a wonderful question which i wish i could answer your a indicated earlier the informant files are offlimits to historians. They are exempt from the freedom of information act. Historians cannot get their hands on informant files. I was lucky that there was a wrongful death lawsuit and the fbi had to give their files to the liuzzo family attorney who gave me access to them. We have the cia or other International Intelligence services we have to pick these people. They have a certain strength and power. You have to pick someone a little on the odd side, as rowe was, to live a double life. Some people, those who are drawn to the world of International Intelligence, would love that excitement of pretending to be something they are not. I wish i have the records to answer the question had the court i wish i had the records to answer that question adequately. Yes. Rowe said that if they had kept track of 12 people within the klan they would not have had informants. But im trying to think how they would have known who those 12 people were without the informants. Where im going with this, with terrorism, people are saying we dont need informants, some people are saying we do need informants and they say if we can just track down x number of people that would give us insight. Could you answer the question and take it to be terrorist mr. May yes, yes. In one of the reviews of my book, it was opposed to all informants. It seemed to me it was more dangerous to recruit from the outside the klan or any other terrorist group. The klansmen immediately become suspicious and rowe, in fact, was challenged several times, accused of being an fbi informant and was either to fight or talk his way out of it. In the case of the clan klan was easier. In the case of the klan, it was obvious. There was one man, robert chambliss, who was eventually convicted of being the main bomber. Everybody knew. Dynamite bob. That was his nickname. He had been in birmingham for 20 years. In an out of jail. In times protected by paul connery who worked for the Birmingham Police for a time. You did not need to put somebody inside the klan. To answer your question more specifically, in the case of the Mississippi Burning case in 1964, the fbi was able to solve that case by identifying klansmen who could leave the fbi to the bodies. It seems to me that is an effective way to go about this. You turn to people who are already members of terrorist groups. Easy to do with members of the clan, but very, very difficult to do. These are obviously committed and they are quite willing to give their life for their cause. Yes . Once they had evidence from this guy that bulk honor bull connor was operating with the klan, what reason was there not to use that evidence against him . Mr. May they had no position regarding connor. Some agents knew connor. Some had grown up in the south. Some tended to be sympathetic to segregation and did not have any problem at all with connor. I cannot find evidence. They probably had a lot in common. Tough law and order. Did i answer your question . Im not sure i did. Law and order men, real law and order men do not allow you can commit a crime for 15 people. Mr. May i know. Ok. Mr. May one more question . Warmer question . Mr. May yes, man. Other than being a fascinating historical story, do you see any of this being relevant to the problems of today . I dont just mean the terrorist, but the far right militias . Mr. May i think it does. Primarily in how you get information about these groups, as you develop informants to put them inside the klan, to try to turn people already inside . At least i hope the book does speak to some of these problems, but also its a terrific story. Im primarily a storyteller. I always wanted to write in a way that is accessible to readers. Theres no point to write for six or seven other scholars in the field. You have to have an audience. Thats what i try to do. Ink you. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] youre watching American History tv. Follow us on twitter for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. Tonight at 9 p. M. Eastern, journalist Irene Zimmerman looks at white collar drug addiction maybeok smacked. They were homeless, struggling with a miller with a Mental Illness that was untreated. See are someone you would on the side of the road. Addiction hits hard in those communities. That there are many people at the top of these social economic ladder struggling as well. Cspan2 tonight at 9 p. M. Eastern. American history tv products and now available at the new cspan online store. To cso cspan store go panstore. Org, see what is new, and check out all of the cspan products. This year marks the 100th anniversary of prohibition. Up next historian, author, and , tour guide garrett peck discussed the rise and fall of the 13 year experiment in america. He is the author of, the prohibition hangover alcohol in america from demon rum to cult cabernet and prohibition in washington, d. C. how dry we werent. Good evening. Am Lauren Rosenberg im so glad you are here tonight. To our members, welcome. If you are joining us for the first time, a warm welcome and an invitation to explore the wide range of programs we offer at smithsonian associates. The time to silence your cell phones or anything else that might make noise throughout the program. We are pleased to