My father was the child of two Italian immigrants who were born in Longi, Sicily. His mother, Rosalia, died at 32 years of age shortly after giving birth to her sixth child. My grandfather, Basilio, from whom I received my name, was a tough Sicilian immigrant who found himself with five young children to raise (the sixth child, Domenico, had died at the age of 2).

One of the children was sent to an orphanage, another one to relatives, and three boys were left with Basilio and were raised in a poor neighborhood made up of southern blacks and Italian immigrants who had all traveled to Cleveland looking for work.