The Washington Post - 21.10.2019

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B6 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 , 2019


obituaries


BY BART BARNES

Thomas J. D’Alesandro III, the
scion of a Maryland political
dynasty who led Baltimore as
mayor during the 1968 riots after
the assassination of the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr., left poli-
tics and decades later saw his
sister, House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, pick up the family man-
tle, died Oct. 20 at his home in
Baltimore. He was 90.
The cause was complications
from a stroke, according to a
spokesman in Pelosi’s office. In a
statement, the speaker called
her brother “the finest public
servant I have ever known.”
Known as “Young Tommy,” Mr.
D’Alesandro was the oldest son
of Thomas J. “Big Tommy” D’Ale-
sandro Jr., who had been one of
Maryland’s dominant civic lead-
ers in the mid-20th century as a
state delegate, congressman
and, from 1947 to 1959, the may-
or of Baltimore. Pelosi, Mr.
D’Alesandro’s youngest sibling
and only sister, grew up to be-
come a California congresswom-
an and twice the nation’s most
powerful female elected official.
When Mr. D’Alesandro took
the oath of office as Baltimore
mayor on Dec. 5, 1967, it seemed
like the fulfillment of a political
prophecy that he might take
over the Democratic fiefdom
that his father had stitched to-
gether over three decades.
Mr. D’Alesandro’s four years
as mayor began at a wrenching
time for U.S. cities with large
African American populations.
Violent civil unrest had unfold-
ed from the Watts neighborhood
in Los Angeles to Newark. Balti-
more, Mr. D’Alesandro later re-
flected to NPR, was “a segregat-
ed city... a Southern city,” but
he held out hope that its long-es-
tablished black middle and pro-
fessional class would help his
metropolis avoid upheaval.
He had been in office only four
months when King’s assassina-
tion in Memphis on April 4,
1968, triggered rioting in more
than 100 cities. During that brief
period, Mr. D’Alesandro had ap-
pointed African Americans to


several city commissions and
boards where none had previ-
ously served, and he took stands
in favor of civil rights and inte-
gration that led to him getting
booed at “I Am an American
Day” parades.
He had a track record of per-
sonal commitment “to equality
and civil rights,” said Matthew
Crenson, a Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity scholar of Maryland poli-
tics.
In the early days after the
assassination, Baltimore re-
mained quiet while Washington,
Chicago and other cities erupted
in violence. “I was starting to feel
it was too calm,” he told the
Baltimore Sun years later, recall-
ing the preparations that he be-
gan making for potential unrest,
including meeting with police
and local African American lead-
ers.
But then, on April 6, late in the
afternoon of a warm spring Sat-
urday, someone tossed a brick
through a plate-glass store win-
dow in a black neighborhood.
Within hours, the city was en-
gulfed in rioting, burning and
looting.
It took all of Baltimore’s police
force, 500 Maryland State Police
officers, thousands of members
of the Maryland National Guard
and 5,000 soldiers from the
Army’s 82nd Airborne Division
to restore order.
The riots left six dead and 700
injured. There were 1,032 fires,
4,500 arrests and 1,075 business-
es looted; many of the stores
never reopened.
After the riots, Mr. D’Ale-
sandro presided over the enact-
ment of a Baltimore civil rights
bill guaranteeing access to pub-
lic accommodations, won ap-
proval of an $80 million bond
issue to build schools and creat-
ed summer recreation programs
that included mobile swimming
pools and day camps for city
youths.
Baltimore also suffered from
loss of manufacturing jobs, labor
strife and white flight, but, for
years, observers speculated that
the riots were principally re-
sponsible for driving Mr. D’Ale-

sandro out of politics, an inter-
pretation that he rejected. He
told the Sun decades later that,
while in office, he continued to
map out his political trajectory,
including a possible run for gov-
ernor, before deciding against it.

He cited financial concerns
among the chief reasons that
kept him from seeking another
term in 1971. He had five chil-
dren to support, he said, and
couldn’t do it on the mayor’s
salary. “I was clearing only $695

every two weeks,” he told the Sun
in 1998. “I couldn’t make ends
meet.
Mr. D’Alesandro began to hint
in the final year of his mayoralty
that he would serve only one
term. The decision still came as a
shock when he made it official.
“My father was devastated,” he
told the Sun. “He thought I was
crazy.”
He went into legal practice in
Baltimore, away from the public
spotlight, specializing in work-
ers’ compensation and personal
injury cases. He retired in 1994.
Thomas Ludwig John D’Ale-
sandro III was born in Baltimore
on July 24, 1929, and grew up in
the Little Italy neighborhood
near the city’s Inner Harbor. His
mother, the former Annunciata
“Nancy” Lombardi, was born in
Naples, grew up in Baltimore
and became a devoted political
wife, helping organize her hus-
band’s campaigns and repre-
senting him when he was un-
available to constituents.
In 1952, when Mr. D’Alesandro
married Margaret “Margie” Pi-
racci at the Baltimore Basilica,
the Sun called it “Baltimore’s
equivalent of a royal wedding,”
and more than 5,000 people
were present. The city fire de-
partment had to turn some away.
Big Tommy was his son’s best
man. The pope sent his blessing,
and President Harry S. Truman
sent a silver tray. Little sister
Nancy was a bridesmaid.
In addition to his wife and his
sister, survivors include five
children; a brother; 10 grand-
children; and three great-grand-
children.
Mr. D’Alesandro graduated
from Baltimore’s Loyola College
in 1949 and from the University
of Maryland law school in 1952.
He served four years in the Army,
won a seat on the city Board of
Elections Supervisors and then,
in 1962, on the City Council,
where he served the next year as
president. In his 1967 race for
mayor, he crushed the opposi-
tion — lawyer and future Balti-
more Orioles owner Peter Ange-
los — in the Democratic primary.
Mr. D’Alesandro easily won the

general election in November.
He was 38.
In addition to financial pres-
sures, the social imperatives of
politics weighed on him, Mr.
D’Alesandro told the Sun.
“I never liked the social aspect
of politics. I loved government.
My father loved it all. He loved
the people. He loved everything
about it. Not me,” he said.
“My father would go into a
funeral establishment,” he said,
“visit the party of the deceased
he had known. Then he’d visit
every other alcove in the funeral
home. He’d turn his visit into a
political rally. I’d go into a funer-
al home, pay my respects to the
one person I knew there, sign the
book and leave. Nobody would
know I was there.”
Mr. D’Alesandro toyed with
the idea of running for governor,
mostly because the job came
with a bigger salary, but other
Democrats stood in his way.
Maryland House Speaker Mar-
vin Mandel had been elevated in
1969 to finished the term of Gov.
Spiro T. Agnew, who resigned to
become Richard M. Nixon’s vice
president. Kennedy in-law R.
Sargent Shriver, a Maryland na-
tive, former Peace Corps director
and U.S. ambassador to France,
was also exploring a run.
“Mandel had the advantage of
incumbency,” Mr. D’Alesandro
recalled to the Sun in 1998. “He
had a political base in Baltimore.
Shriver had all that Kennedy
money.” Mandel went on to serve
as the state’s chief executive for
much of the 1970s.
Mr. D’Alesandro became an
occasional adviser to his sister,
11 years his junior, who carried
the family’s political ambitions
to a national level. Often asked
to comment on the environment
that shaped her, he spoke with
admiration about her decision to
start a political career in San
Francisco, across the country
from her home city. And he of-
fered a bit of personal insight
about her drive toward public
service. “It’s not a choice,” he
once told the Orlando Sentinel.
“It’s just innate in her.”
[email protected]

THOMAS J. D’ALESANDRO III, 90


Scion of civic dynasty served term as Baltimore mayor before quitting politics


WEYMAN SWAGGER/BALTIMORE SUN
Thomas J. D’Alesandro III at a news conference a few months into
his term as Baltimore’s mayor. He did not seek reelection in 1971.

“I never liked the social aspect of


politics. I loved government.”


Thomas J. D’Alesandro III, former Baltimore mayor

TMCF: Making College Graduation


Viable for Every American
By Dr. Harry L. Williams
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joining TMCF, he spent eight years as president of Delaware State University. Follow him on
Twitter at @DrHLWilliams.
Free download pdf