The Italian-American Civil Rights League (IACRL) was a political advocacy group created in New York City in April 1970. William Santoro, a defense attorney that represented many Colombo crime family figures, was responsible for the legal work that incorporated the league. Its stated goal was to combat pejorative stereotypes about Italian-Americans, but in actuality, it operated as a public relations firm to deny the existence of the American Mafia and improve the image of mobsters. Following its closure, a separate organization was founded which borrowed the name and continues to be active.

History

In April 1970, Joseph Colombo created the Italian-American Civil Rights League, the month his son Joseph Colombo Jr. was charged with melting down coins for resale as silver ingots. In response, Joseph Colombo Sr. claimed FBI harassment of Italian Americans and, on April 30, 1970, sent 30 picketers outside FBI headquarters at Third Avenue and 69th Street to protest the federal persecution of all Italians everywhere; this went on for weeks. Footage of the 1970 rally appeared in the film Days of Fury (1979), directed by Fred Warshofsky and hosted by Vincent Price. In February 1971, Colombo Jr. was acquitted of the charge after the chief witness in the trial had been arrested on perjury charges.

The group then turned its attention to what it perceived as cultural slights and discrimination against Italian-Americans, using boycott threats to force Alka-Seltzer and the Ford Motor Company to withdraw television commercials the league objected to. Another group success was that U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell ordered the U.S. Justice Department to stop using the word "Mafia" in official documents and press releases. The league also secured an agreement from Albert S. Ruddy, the producer of The Godfather, to omit the terms "Mafia" and "cosa nostra" from the film's dialogue, and succeeded in having Macy's stop selling a board game called The Godfather Game. The IACRL boycotted the Ford Motor Company because of its sponsorship of the television show The F.B.I. and its negative references to Italian-Americans as gangsters. Both organizations felt they faced similar problems of harassment from the government. Meir Kahane also claimed he was trying to establish dialogue with Italians because he believed antisemitism and racism were common in the Italian-American community. The alliance was made public on May 12 when Joseph Colombo Sr. attended a press conference with Kahane. Colombo Sr. also paid the 45,000 dollars Kahane needed for bail after being arrested on charges of conspiracy to violate the 1968 Federal Gun Control Act. Kahane stated that Joseph Colombo Jr. was sympathetic to the plight of Jews in the Soviet Union, and thought he could use the Italian community to help raise awareness about Soviet Jews. Kahane defended their relationship by saying, "I’d take help from anybody. If the State of Israel took help from Joseph Stalin, then I could take help from Joe Colombo.". Colombo survived the shooting, but was paralyzed. Colombo died seven years later from cardiac arrest due to injuries sustained from the shooting. The group is led nationally by Colombo Jr., businessman and political figure Mike Crispi and criminal defense attorney Gerard Marrone.

See also

  • Anti-Italian racism

References

Further reading

  • Capria, Don and Anthony Colombo. Colombo: The Unsolved Murder. New York: Unity Press, 2015,
  • Crime Library: Colombo Family, chronicle of 1971 rally in Columbus Circle by the Italian-American Civil Rights League