TheWaterClosetWerks

07/20/2026

Dancin in the streets

04/12/2026

She was 39. A mother. A woman who looked at a community under siege -- a community not her own -- and decided its fight was her fight. She refused to look away. She got in her car to help. And she was shot in the head by men the state refused to hold accountable -- while the system called her criminal and turned its scrutiny on her. This was 1965. This was Viola Liuzzo.

Liuzzo, who was born on this day in 1925, was a Detroit civil rights activist who had traveled to Alabama in response to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call for volunteers, telling her husband that the civil rights struggle was "everybody's fight." After the historic Selma to Montgomery march, she was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan -- the far-right, white supremacist terrorist organization.

On March 25, 1965, the final day of the Selma to Montgomery march, Liuzzo was using her car to shuttle marchers from Montgomery back to Selma, along with 19-year-old fellow activist Leroy Moton. When she stopped at a red light, a car filled with local Klan members pulled up alongside them. Seeing Liuzzo, a White woman, and Moton, a Black man, together, they followed. They pulled a gun and shot directly at Liuzzo. She was killed by a bullet to the head; Moton, covered in her blood, pretended to be dead when the Klan members investigated the crashed vehicle.

Liuzzo's murder shocked millions and, along with outrage at the violent treatment of Selma protesters, helped spur the signing of the historic 1965 Voting Rights Act five months later.

Liuzzo had grown up in deep poverty in Tennessee and was already an active member of the Detroit NAACP when she saw television footage of hundreds of civil rights activists beaten at the Edmund Pettus Bridge during the first attempted march on March 7, 1965. Horrified by "Bloody Sunday," she decided to heed King's call.

Her husband was initially opposed, telling her that civil rights "isn't your fight." She responded that "it's everybody's fight" and drove to Selma to volunteer during the five-day march. Liuzzo called her family nightly with updates. She was thrilled by the march's success and to be contributing to what she considered the most important fight of her time.

After her death, prominent civil rights leaders -- including King, James Farmer, and Roy Wilkins -- attended Liuzzo's funeral in Detroit. The four Klan members were quickly arrested; one was a paid FBI informant and protected from prosecution. The other three were tried for murder in Alabama, but all-white juries refused to convict -- the first trial ended in a hung jury, the second in acquittal. It was only after the federal government stepped in, charging them with conspiracy to violate Liuzzo's civil rights, that they were found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison.

In an attempt to obscure the federal informant's presence in the car, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover launched a smear campaign against Liuzzo -- shifting scrutiny from the killers to the victim. He spread allegations that she was a drug addict and having an affair with Moton.

Critics questioned what kind of mother would leave her children to involve herself in such dangerous work -- to involve herself in a fight that, they said, was not hers. As author Mary Stanton later wrote, "The media took only days to completely transform Viola Liuzzo from a murder victim to an outside agitator and a symbol of reckless female defiance."

Hoover and the FBI's role was uncovered in 1978 when her children obtained FBI case documents under the Freedom of Information Act. What they found was part of a much larger pattern. Hoover had run the FBI for nearly five decades, building it into a powerful and secretive agency that operated largely without oversight. His COINTELPRO program -- exposed after activists burglarized an FBI field office in 1971 -- turned the FBI's machinery against civil rights organizations and their leaders: illegal surveillance, forged documents, disinformation.

Hoover called Martin Luther King Jr. "the most dangerous Negro in America" and authorized agents to send King an anonymous letter urging him to commit su***de. In 1975, the Senate's Church Committee investigated COINTELPRO and concluded that the FBI had engaged in a "pattern of reckless disregard of activities that threatened our constitutional system."

The revelations were so damning that Congress passed reforms limiting FBI directors to a single ten-year term -- a safeguard designed to ensure no one could ever again wield such unchecked power. Hoover's name became synonymous with the abuse of federal authority: surveillance as a weapon, disinformation as policy, and the criminalization of those who challenged the state.

While her story was largely forgotten for many years, Liuzzo's commitment and sacrifice has received more recognition recently. She was posthumously awarded the 2017 Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award, named in honor of the co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which honors individuals who contributed to civil and human rights.

The loss of their mother was devastating to her children, but they are deeply proud of how she lived and the legacy she left. Her daughter Mary Liuzzo Lilleboe says that when they obtained her mother's journal from the FBI, she saw Liuzzo had written, "I can't sit back and watch my people suffer."

To Lilleboe, that passage sums up what drove her mother: "She actually believed it when Christ said that the suffering and needy are our people. Mom saw all other human beings as her people."

-----

For two in-depth accounts of Viola Liuzzo's story, we recommend "From Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo" (https://www.amightygirl.com/from-selma-to-sorrow) and "Selma and the Liuzzo Murder Trials" (https://amzn.to/3K01D0a)

For two books to introduce children to heroic girls and women of the famous Selma March, we highly recommend "Child of the Civil Rights Movement" for ages 4 to 8 (https://www.amightygirl.com/child-of-the-civil-rights-movement) and "Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the Selma Voting Rights March," for 12 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/turning-15-on-the-road-to-freedom)

To inspire children and teens with more true stories of girls and women who fought for change throughout history, visit our blog post, "Dissent Is Patriotic: 50 Books About Women Who Fought for Change," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=14364

To introduce children and teens to more courageous women who helped lead the fight for equality, we've shared many reading recommendations in our blog post, "50 Inspiring Books on Girls & Women of the Civil Rights Movement," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11177

To stay connected with A Mighty Girl, you can sign-up for our free email newsletter at https://www.amightygirl.com/forms/newsletter

04/11/2026

Tanks from the American Third Army rolled through Buchenwald, liberating one of the N***s' most notorious concentration camps on this day in 1945. Among the prisoners freed was a French woman who had been lined up against a wall moments earlier, waiting for a firing squad to carry out her ex*****on.

As American troops approached, the N***s had prepared to eliminate evidence of their crimes -- including the prisoners. Lined up against a wall with other inmates, she watched the firing squad take position. Then a telephone rang in the commandant's office. It was a message from the Americans: the firing squad had been seen entering the camp. If they wanted to live, they would spare the prisoners. The soldiers fled.

Her name was Andrée Peel -- known to the French Resistance as "Agent Rose." She would become one of the most decorated women to survive the war.

When German soldiers marched into the port city of Brest in June 1940, the 35-year-old beauty salon owner committed her first act of defiance: she hid fleeing French soldiers and found civilian clothes for them so they wouldn't be captured. Days later, when General Charles de Gaulle declared on the radio that "France has lost a battle, but she has not lost the war," Peel and her friends typed out his words and slipped copies through letterboxes across the city.

Within weeks, she was leading an under-section of the Resistance. Under her code name "Agent Rose," she passed intelligence on German naval movements and troop positions to the Allies. Her most dangerous work came at night: she and her team used torches to guide Allied planes to improvised landing strips, then smuggled downed British and American pilots through a network of safe houses to remote beaches, where they escaped on submarines and gunboats. Over three years, she saved the lives of 102 Allied airmen.

In 1943, when the Gestapo closed in on the Brest network, Peel fled to Paris and assumed a new identity. But shortly after D-Day, a fellow Resistance member broke under torture and revealed her location. She was arrested and taken to Gestapo headquarters, where she was stripped and interrogated. The Gestapo tortured her, using methods that included simulated drowning and beating her throat; the damage she suffered from their interrogation would cause her pain for the rest of her life.

She prided herself on one thing above all: she never broke. "I was born with courage," she said. "I did not allow cruel people to find in me a person they could torture."

After the Gestapo were done with her, she was transported to Ravensbrück, the notorious women's concentration camp, where she narrowly escaped death multiple times. Upon arrival, prisoners were marched into what she later realized was a gas chamber -- but for unknown reasons, they were released instead of killed. She was lucky twice more during her time at Ravensbrück: first when she fell ill with meningitis but miraculously recovered, and then when she was selected for the gas chamber during roll call, but a Polish prisoner managed to sn**ch and hide the paper with her number before the SS noticed. She was eventually transferred to Buchenwald, where liberation finally came.

After the war, she returned to Paris, where crowds welcomed her singing La Marseillaise. She fulfilled a promise made in captivity by making a pilgrimage to Sacré-Cœur to give thanks for her survival. She received the Croix de Guerre, the Medal of the Resistance, the Liberation Cross, and -- at age 99 -- France's highest honor, the Légion d'honneur, presented by her own brother, a four-star general. She received the Medal of Freedom from President Eisenhower and a personal letter of thanks from Winston Churchill.

At her centenary in 2005, she received a letter from Queen Elizabeth II. Asked the secret to her long life, she replied: "I still feel like a woman of 50. I think that time has forgotten me."

When Peel died in 2010 at the age of 105, her coffin was draped with both the French and British flags -- a rare honor reflecting the two nations she had served. A public park in England now bears her name.

In her memoir, "Miracles Do Happen," she reflected on her choices: "You don't know what freedom is if you have never lost it.... The only fear we had was of being tortured and of speaking under torture. I rarely thought of my personal safety. I just acted and did what I believed was the right thing."

What the Gestapo called criminal, history has called heroic. Andrée Peel faced torture, concentration camps, and a firing squad for fighting tyranny -- and still she resisted. Still she guided planes through the darkness and smuggled young pilots to safety. "At that time we were all putting our lives in danger but we did it because we were fighting for freedom," she recalled. "It was a terrible time but looking back I am so proud of what I did and I'm glad to have helped defend the freedom of our future generations."

----

For several excellent books about real-life women of the Resistance for adult readers, we recommend "The Nine" (https://www.amightygirl.com/the-nine), "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days" (https://www.amightygirl.com/frequent-troubles-of-our-days), "The Women Who Liberated Italy from Fascism" (https://www.amightygirl.com/a-house-in-the-mountains), "A Woman of No Importance" (https://www.amightygirl.com/a-woman-of-no-importance), and "D-Day Girls" (https://www.amightygirl.com/d-day-girls)

For adults who love to read about heroic women of WWII, you can find more of the best fiction and non-fiction books in our blog post, "Telling Her Story: 40 Books for Adult Readers About Women Heroes of WWII," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=24501

For a fascinating book about both famous and little known women heroes of WWII for both teens and adults, ages 12 and up, we highly recommend "Women Heroes of World War II: 32 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue," for teens and adults, at https://www.amightygirl.com/women-heroes-of-world-war-ii

For books for children and teens about girls and women involved in WWII resistance movements, we recommend "Jars of Hope" for ages 7 to 10 (https://www.amightygirl.com/jars-of-hope), "The Light of Days" for ages 10 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/light-days-young-readers), "Resistance" for ages 12 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/resistance), "In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer" for ages 14 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/in-my-hands)

04/10/2026

It's April. April showers bring May flowers. Here are a few rainy day photos for this month. Can you guess what my subject will be next month? LOL

03/15/2026

I've lived within a mile of your house for years. You've never seen me. Not once.

I'm a Bobcat. About twenty pounds. I stand knee-high to you. My territory covers a few square miles of suburban-adjacent woodland, drainage corridors, and the green strips between neighborhoods.

I travel through your development every few nights using the storm drain easement, the creek behind the school, and the overgrown lots that nobody walks through after dark. I cross your backyard in the early morning while you're making coffee. I walk your fence line at dusk while you're inside. My paw prints are in your flower bed right now.

I'm crepuscular — active at dawn and dusk — which means I operate in the narrow windows when you're either still asleep or just getting home. That's why you've never spotted me despite living in my territory for years.

Trail cameras tell the real story. Across suburban and exurban areas, bobcats are showing up on backyard cameras with a frequency that surprises homeowners. We're not moving in. We were here before the subdivision was. The cameras just proved what was always true.

In any given year, a single bobcat removes dozens of rabbits and hundreds of rodents from the area it patrols. The neighborhood that doesn't have a rat problem despite being near restaurant dumpsters — there's often a bobcat working the corridor nobody watches. The garden with fewer rabbits this year than last — same reason.

I'm not a threat to anything larger than a rabbit. I avoid dogs, avoid people, and move through spaces designed for humans without leaving any sign except the occasional paw print.

🐾 If a bobcat is in your neighborhood:

- You almost certainly won't see it — they're built for invisibility in suburban edge habitat and operate when foot traffic is lowest
- A trail camera on a fence line, creek corridor, or drainage easement is the most reliable way to confirm presence. Dawn and dusk are peak movement windows
- Bobcats and outdoor cats don't coexist well — keeping cats indoors at dawn and dusk removes the overlap entirely
- A bobcat that sees you and moves away is behaving normally. One that approaches or lingers is habituated and should be reported to wildlife management
- Small dogs should be supervised during dawn and dusk hours in areas with confirmed bobcat activity — not because attacks are common, but because the size overlap creates risk
- Their presence is a strong indicator of healthy habitat — bobcats need connected corridors, prey density, and cover. A bobcat in your neighborhood means the local ecosystem is functioning

I'm not visiting. I'm not lost. I'm the resident you didn't know you had 🌿

03/14/2026

After rain, a blade of grass under a microscope can reveal tiny patterns that even resemble smiling faces. The bright shapes you see are tightly packed plant cells forming the surface of the leaf. Inside many of these cells are chloroplasts that capture sunlight and help the plant produce energy through photosynthesis. Tiny droplets of rain cling to the leaf’s microscopic ridges and openings, making the details even clearer. What looks like little happy faces is simply a fun illusion created by the natural arrangement of the cells.

03/14/2026

03/13/2026

Right now, on a single stretch of river in Nebraska, over a million cranes are standing in the water.

They arrived from Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico — some flying four hundred miles in a single day. And they all funneled into the same place. Not a coastline. Not a mountain range. One shallow, braided river in the middle of the Great Plains.

Eighty percent of the world's sandhill cranes are packed into a hundred-and-fifty-mile stretch of the Platte River right now. That makes this one of the largest concentrations of any single bird species anywhere on Earth.

They are among the oldest living birds on the planet. A crane fossil found in Nebraska — structurally identical to the modern sandhill crane — is roughly ten million years old. That means cranes were using this landscape before the Platte River even existed. The river formed ten thousand years ago. The cranes were already here.

They mate for life. Pairs stay together year-round, migrate together, and raise their young together. Their courtship is a full-body dance — wings outstretched, heads pumping, leaping high off the ground, tossing sticks into the air. Parents teach their chicks to dance in the first year of life. Juveniles practice for years before choosing a partner. Some pairs stay bonded for over twenty years.

They're here for one reason — to eat. Corn left in the fields from the fall harvest makes up sixty to ninety percent of their diet during this stopover. In the meadows and wetlands, they find protein — earthworms, snails, insect larvae. Over several weeks, a single crane can gain a pound of fat, increasing body mass by twenty percent. That reserve is what gets them to the breeding grounds in Canada, Alaska, and Siberia — where spring food is still scarce when they arrive.

At dusk, they return to the river. The shallow channels and sandbars let them stand in water while they sleep — safe from coyotes, sheltered from wind. Then at dawn, the sky fills. Tens of thousands lift off at once in a sound you can hear from a mile away.

🦅 What keeps the gathering alive:

- The Platte River's wide, shallow channels with open sandbars are irreplaceable roosting habitat — cranes need clear sightlines and ankle-deep water to sleep safely at night
- Waste grain from nearby cornfields fuels the entire stopover — changes in farming practices that reduce leftover corn directly reduce the energy available to a million migrating birds
- Cranes return to the same roosting sites year after year — habitat loss along the Platte pushes more birds into smaller areas, increasing competition and stress
- Wetland meadows near the river provide the protein and minerals cranes need to arrive at breeding grounds ready to nest — without them, the fat gained from corn alone is not enough

The river has been their refueling stop for ten thousand years. The cranes have been flying this route for ten million. Everything between Nebraska and the Arctic depends on six weeks along the Platte 🌾