Ta-Nehisi Coates

The white woman who's grown up in poverty, dad is a coal miner, marries this dude who's like a teamster, union activist.

I mean, they're just straight, you know, working class, you know, white people with, you know, no ostensible reason to be conscious save this.

She saw poverty.

And she saw what poverty did to her family, and she saw what it did to Black families around her.

And that allowed for a basic level of recognition and humanity.

And she was inspired by the March on Selma, drove 800 miles from her home,

Left her five kids behind to go, you know, join this march.

Was giving two marchers a ride on the way back when she was murdered by a group of white supremacists.

And here's where the story gets dark.

In that car also of the murderers was an FBI agent under the direction or FBI informant under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover.

And Hoover, in order to hide the fact that the Bureau actually had an asset in the car when Viola Louiezo was killed, spread this rumor about her, very similar to the kind of rumors that you, or the kind of stuff you hear about Renee Goode, that in fact she was a heroin addict and she was down there doing heroin with black men and she had only gone south to sleep with black men.

And they put this stuff out there and they traumatized her family.

This is the federal government, right?

This isn't just like white supremacists.

This is J. Edgar Hoover doing this.

And that was the price that she paid with her life.

And then her family continued to pay the price after.

And I guess one thing I have never understood is why we don't hear her name more.

I just don't get it.

You know what I mean?