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The Vito Marcantonio Forum is a cultural historical community based organization that brings together people, from a wide variety of backgrounds, dedicated to disseminating and sharing knowledge of the life and work of Vito Marcantonio (1902 to 1954). Marcantonio, who served as Congressman from East Harlem for fourteen years (1934-1936, 1938-1950), organized a powerful political coalition of that community’s Italian-American, Puerto Rican, and African-American residents. Marcantonio’s dedication to his beloved East Harlem, a working-class community where he spent his entire life, continues to inspire his admirers. Marcantonio politically survived incessant attacks from the two major parties and the commercial media. He aroused the ire of these forces because of his advocacy of civil rights, Puerto Rico’s independence, labor’s cause, equal treatment for the foreign-born, and his insistence on reining in what he saw as rapacious capitalism. During the postwar period, he reached even wider audiences for his almost single-handed opposition to the United States’ government’s confrontational foreign policy and his defense of the victims of McCarthyism in court and from the floor of the House. The VMF is committed to correcting the historical record, which oft-times has ignored or misrepresented Marcantonio’s unceasing work on behalf of those left out of the American Dream and his courageous fight for a more authentically democratic country. Also part of the VMF’s mission is to publicize the history of Marcantonio’s mentors and collaborators—Leonard Covello, the Italian American educator, and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who had served as the District’s congressman from 1922 to 1932. Like Marcantonio, Covello and LaGuardia both of whom resided in East Harlem. The VMF is also interested in increasing awareness of the American Labor Party, which Marcantonio led for many years, and the critical role of the Left that rallied to Marcantonio. In addition, the Vito Marcantonio Forum seeks to inform wide audiences of the political and cultural backdrop of Italian Harlem and El Barrio that explains the emergence of the “Vito Marcantonio Phenomenon,” that is, a successful progressive politician who never compromised his principles. The Vito Marcantonio Forum offers valuable important frame of reference for coalition-building across races, creeds, color, genders, sexual orientations, and generations. The VMF is a beacon to that memory and will aim to restore much of what the McCarthy hysteria destroyed.
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“Professor Meyer is currently in the final stages of assembling "The Unity of the People: Studies in Italian American Radicalism" which this discussion will include:
"L'Unita del Popolo"
"Italian Harlem's Biggest Funeral: The Burial of Vito Marcantonio"
"Frank Sinatra and the Popular Front."
https://www.facebook.com/groups/906160526425519/
We are interested in this knowledge. Thanks for preserving. We would like to share our group celebrating Italian-American Visual Artists. We are seeking talented Artist of Italian lineage. Thank You.
Seeking talented Italian-American Visual Artists....and art lovers alike.
Aside from arguably serving as the top #Congressman in the history of the United States, many people do not know #VitoMarcantonio was an excellent criminal defense attorney. In the following article he defends anti Nazi activism: “The Nazis can no longer hide behind the German flag,” he said, adding that they now left no doubt they marched behind “a symbol of cowardice and ignorance. I am proud to have played my little part in this far-reaching event.”
He was a good friend of my parents during the Roosevelt administration. He apparently gave me a teddy bear when I was born but I don't remember it.
My favorite Marcantonio story is about my father and Mark standing next to the Congressional elevators. Some politician walks out and Mark said, "I hate that guy. I'm giving him the evil eye." A few weeks later the guy was dead.
The article on Vito Marcantonio published by Mondo Basilicata is available on-line at
The second coming of Vito is here! My name is Michael Marcantonio and I’m running for New York State Assembly on Long Island to oust a do-nothing Trump Republican and resurrect the spirit of voting your conscience! Please follow me and support our movement to reclaim our democracy in New York!
Have you all seen this yet? Thanks to Tamiment Archives for the link!
Don't miss Work Of Arts and VMF stage reading production of Waiting For Lefty!
Posted, "Puerto Rico: Forgotten Family" @