|
|
|
Italian American Role in History of U.S. Civil Rights,
Topic of New Report from Sons of Italy
Press
Contact: Kylie Cafiero, (202) 547-2900 kcafiero@osia.org
WASHINGTON,
D.C. - March 2, 2006 The
role men and women of Italian
heritage have played in protecting
the civil rights of American
Indians, African Americans,
workers, women and the poor
is the subject of a new report
from the Order Sons of Italy
in America (OSIA), the oldest
and largest organization in
the United States for men and
women of Italian descent.
Believed
to be the first such study of
its kind, With Liberty
For All: Italian Americans & Civil
Rights,
was researched and released by
OSIA's anti-defamation arm, the
Sons of Italy Commission for
Social Justice (CSJ).
It profiles
the most notable Italian Americans
who promoted social justice,
from the 18th and 19th century
missionaries, who worked with
American Indian tribes to Italian
American lawmakers, who were
active in the civil rights
movement of the 1960s. The
report reveals that:
• Many
American Indian languages are known
today, thanks to the
Italian missionaries who wrote them
down in bi-lingual dictionaries,
vocabularies and grammar
books.
•
The first American Indian physician, Carlos
Montezuma,
was raised by Carlo Gentile, a 19th century Neapolitan
photographer of the American West, who rescued him
as a child from a band of Pima Indians and later sent
him to medical school in Chicago.
•
U.S. Congressman Peter Rodino of New Jersey wrote the
legislation that helped make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s
birthday a federal holiday in 1983.
•
Father Geno Baroni, a civil rights activist priest,
marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and promoted better
race relations in 300 inner city neighborhoods in the
1960s and 1970s.
•
One of the founders of the International Ladies Garment
Workers Union in 1936 was Angela Bambace, a seamstress
who later became the union's first woman officer in
1956.
•
Union official Anthony Mazzocchi played a crucial role
in establishing the U.S. Labor Department's Occupational
Safety and Health Administration, which enforces regulations
to prevent injury, illness and death in the workplace.
•
Before becoming a U.S. Congresswoman and vice presidential
candidate, Geraldine Ferraro was a New York district
attorney in the 1970s, who started the Special Victims
Bureau, which prosecutes sex crimes, child abuse, domestic
violence and violent crimes against senior citizens.
"It
is most regrettable that the impressive record of
Italian Americans as civil rights activists has been
overshadowed by the likes of fictional Italian American
gangsters like Tony Soprano," says CSJ National President
Albert De Napoli, Esq.
Click
Here to read With Liberty For All: Italian
Americans & Civil
Rights.
For a free printed copy, send stamped ($1.95),
self-addressed envelope to OSIA Civil Rights Report,
219 E Street NE, Washington, DC 20002.
OSIA has more than
600,000 members and supporters
and a network of 700 chapters
coast to coast. It works at
the community, national and
international levels to promote
the heritage and culture of
an estimated 26 million Italian
Americans, the nation’s fifth
largest ethnic group, according
to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Back to top
|
|
|
|
