Council Member Joann Ariola(D-32) introduced legislation to officially designate March 14th as Innocent 11 Remembrance Day during the October 10th City Council Meeting.
The remembrance day, designated for the City of New York, would commemorate 11 Italian men killed during a mass lynching in New Orleans in 1891. The resolution will go to the Council Committee on Cultural Affairs, and if passed, it will go back to the Council floor for a final vote.
Ariola’s proposed legislation came days before Columbus Day, which falls on October 14th and is designated as a day to highlight the many contributions Italians have made throughout American History.
Ariola explained that she learned about the violent tragedy from a speech by the Consul General of Italy, Fabrizio Di Michele, who told the story of the Innocent 11 and its correlation to the creation of Columbus Day.
“In 1891, 11 Italian men were brutally murdered. They were lynched by an angry mob in New Orleans,” Ariola said. “There was outrage both in the United States and, of course, in Italy, and those who orchestrated the lynching were set free.”
The men-Antonio Bagnetto, James Caruso, Loreto Comitis, Rocco Geraci, Joseph Macheca, Antonio Marchesi, Pietro Monasterio, Emmanuele Polizzi, Frank Romero, Antonio Scaffidi, and Charles Traina, were wrongfully accused of the murder of New Orleans Police Chief David Hennesy.
The group was then imprisoned, and many were tried for murder, with court proceedings resulting in not guilty verdicts and mistrials due to lack of evidence. Despite the lack of evidence, various city officials, newspapers, and citizens called for their public execution.
As public outrage grew following the lynchings, President Benjamin Harrison sought to calm tensions by holding the first national celebration of Columbus Day, aiming to appease Americans, Italian immigrants, and Italy.
Ariola said that her introduction to the story of the Innocent 11 was an ‘awakening’ as someone of Italian heritage. “I knew Columbus Day was important to Americans of Italian descent and Italian immigrants. However, I didn’t know that it was so deeply rooted in a horrific tragedy that had happened so long ago,” she said.
Ariola believes that the story of the Innocent 11 is vital to understanding Columbus Day’s significance for Italian Americans.
“Therefore, I thought it was important that if I, who is an American of Italian descent, did not know about this particular incident and the reason why it correlates to Columbus Day, then it really should be brought to the forefront so more people could understand why Columbus Day is so important to people of Italian heritage,” she told QNS.
Furthermore, Ariola explained that the remembrance day would signify that violence based on one’s background is intolerable.
“This way, we can make sure that the legacy lives on…and any type of violence or hatred against any ethnicity or religion is not something that we as Americans should ever tolerate,” she said.
