New Orleans mayor to apologize for 1891 lynching of 11 Italian Americans
Source: Associated Press
New Orleans mayor to apologize for 1891 lynching of 11 Italian Americans
Updated Mar 30, 2019; Posted Mar 30, 2019
By The Associated Press
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell plans an apology to Italian Americans for whats considered the U.S.'s deadliest lynching, violence that killed 11 Italian immigrants after acquittals in a police chiefs murder. This has been a longstanding wound, said Michael Santo of the Order Sons and Daughters of Italy.
The 1891 lynching and responses to it prompted Italy to close its embassy in the United States. The U.S. then closed its embassy in Italy, Santo said.
Santo said that when New Orleans was asked earlier this year for an apology, Cantrell embraced the idea. She appointed Human Relations Commission head Vincenzo Pasquantonio as liaison.
Our office has worked with the Italian-American community on this issue and will be releasing a proclamation April 12, mayoral spokesman Joseph Caruso said. The proclamation will be presented at the citys American Italian Cultural Center, organizers said.
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Read more:
https://www.nola.com/politics/2019/03/new-orleans-mayor-to-apologize-for-1891-lynching-of-11-italian-americans.html
A photograph taken Jan. 30, 2016, shows a copy of a March 14, 1891, newspaper advertisement as shown in the Musee Conti Wax Museum exhibit about the lynching of 11 Italian immigrants, three of whom had been acquitted a day earlier in the murder of the New Orleans police chief. Mayor LaToya Cantrell plans an apology in 2019 to Italian-Americans for whats considered the nations largest lynching (Photo by AWE News via The Associated Press)