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The story of how an Italian American housewife and community organizer battled a Brooklyn Mafia boss and political activist for the hearts and minds of a white working class in revolt.
This is the true story of a rivalry between a pair of improbable social justice crusaders––Mary Sansone, an Italian homemaker, and Joe Colombo, a Mafia boss––set against the backdrop of Brooklyn's racial and ethnic feuds of the 1960s and 1970s. From her basement kitchen, Mary Sansone launched the Congress of Italian American Organizations, a social-action coalition operating multimillion-dollar programs on behalf of the Italian poor. From his office suite high above Madison Avenue, Joe Colombo defied omertà to commandeer the Italian American Civil Rights League, an audacious anti-defamation organization that convinced thousands to join sidewalk pickets and mass demonstrations. When, around 1970, Mary and Joe's paths finally cross, they battle each other for the hearts and minds of a white working class in revolt. This book challenges stereotypes of the docile Italian wife and the parochial Mafioso by recasting these actors as a rebel girl and a renegade wiseguy. It offers an alternative history of the 1960s and 1970s, when it was presumed that white ethnics living in urban America were predisposed to responding to the civil rights movement with backlash and the women's movement with scorn.
"Rebel Girl and the Godfather is about the battle between a five-foot Italian American Brooklyn housewife, mother, and social worker and a politically powerful Organized Crime boss. She won. An amazing story as told by Jeff Decker, who was there. I know, because so was I." — Nicholas Pileggi, author of non-fiction bestsellers Wiseguy and Casino and award-winning coscreenwriter with Martin Scorsese on the movie Goodfellas
"This is a fantastic, gripping, and surprising work of history that upends our expectations of the narratives we think we already know about race, gender, and the civil rights movement in the United States. Clearly written and carefully researched, it's riveting and original." — Samantha Pinto, University of Texas at Austin
List of Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Preface
Prologue
Part One. South Brooklyn
1. Mary and Joe
2. Family Room Crime
3. Mrs. Sansone and Capo Colombo
Part Two. Civil Rights Confidential
4. A Rage in Harlem (1960)
5. Boycott (1961)
6. Knotty Pine Politics (1962)
7. Racial Equality on the Waterfront (1963)
8. Most Wanted (1964)
9. Mafia Literati (1965)
10. Black Power Provocation (1966)
11. Exclusively Italian (1967)
12. Ethnic Harmony Amidst Civil Disorder (1968)
13. "The Mark of an Emergent Self-Consciousness" (1969)
Part Three. Rise Up!
14. Day 1 (April 30, 1970)
15. Picket (May)
16. The League (June)
17. Unity Day (June 29)
18. Alliance Averted (July)
19. The M-Word (August)
20. San Gennaro Handshake (September)
21. Some Kind of Wonderful (October)
22. The Offer (November)
23. Sister Joe (December)
24. Man of the Year (January 1971)
25. Hollywood Deal (February)
26. No Show (March)
27. Park-Sheraton Slap (April)
28. CIAO Coalition (May)
29. Scorpio (June)
30. Columbus Circle (June 28)
Part Four. Stayin' Alive
31. Nowhere Man (1971)
32. Cellar to Suite (1971)
33. Button Men (1971–72)
34. Wobbly and Quaker (1971–72)
35. New League Retreat: Canarsie's Busing Crisis (1972–73)
36. "A Model for All New Yorkers" (1973–75)
37. A League of Their Own: Williamsburg's Neighborhood Women (1974–77)
38. Requiem and Redemption (1977–79)
39. The Machine Strikes Back (1977–79)
Coda
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index