The Vito Marcantonio Forum (VMF) invites one-and-all to attend "Vito Marcantonio: Fourth Annual Commemoration". The one-hour-long program will feature the reading of "The People's Proclamation for Vito Marcantonio." In addition, there will be dramatizations by Roberto Ragone and LuLu Pascale. Gerald Meyer will deliver a eulogy. Elected officials are invited to attend.

WHEN: @ 3:00 PM, on Sunday August 28th,

WHERE: Outside City Hall Park across from the Woolworth Building. We are assembling there because it is nearby the site where, at 51, the East Harlem Congressman fell dead.

POST-EVENT: After the event, attendees will retire to a restaurant two blocks distance away.

The Back Story:
Vito Marcantonio (1902-1954), who represented his community in the House of Representatives for seven terms (1934-1936, 1938-1950), was elected to office as a leader of the American Labor Party. Through his activities, in and outside of Congress, Marc, as his constituents called him, earned the status of national spokesperson for American progressives. An unrivaled leader in the struggle for racial equality, the rights of the foreign-born, and against McCarthyism in all of its ugly manifestations, Marcantonio was devoted to the cause of Puerto Rico's independence. In 1950, declaring his need to "vote his conscience," Vito Marcantonio was the sole member of Congress to vote against United States participation in what he termed, the civil war raging in Korea. Vilified and slandered in his life time, Marc's East Harlem's mostly Italian-American, Puerto Ricans, and African-American constituents remained fiercely loyal. However, in 1950, when confronted with a "regular" Democrat who was also endorsed by the Republican and Liberal parties, Marcantonio was defeated.

Marc was buried in historic Woodlawn Cemetery in the northeast Bronx, because Cardinal Spellman refused to allow him to be buried in a Catholic cemetery. Subsequently, Vito Marcantonio's colossal work for all those shut out of participation in the American dream has been erased from American history.

About the VMF:
The Vito Marcantonio Forum (VMF) is an educational organization dedicated to preserving the history of the radical political tradition of East Harlem, the cultural backdrop of Italian Harlem and El Barrio and increasing awareness of the American Labor Party that Marcantonio led for years; and the critical role of the Left that rallied to Marcantonio.

http://vitomarcantonioforum.com/

Twitter: @VMForum

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www.vitomarcantonioforum.org