A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #15-26 - Antonio Fierro: The First Victim of Fascism in the United States (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

On July 14, 1933, in New York, student Antonio Fierro became the first 
victim of fascism in America. Born in Bisaccia (Avenza) on December 25, 
1911, after completing his high school studies in Melfi, he had joined 
his parents in New York a few years earlier. His father, anarchist 
bricklayer Michele Fierro, born in 1888, had been "targeted" by the 
fascist regime by registering a file in the Central Political Records 
Office. He was a reader and supporter of the important anarchist weekly 
"L'Adunata dei Refrattari," published in New York since 1922.

On the morning of July 14, Carlo Tresca, writing in the columns of 
"Stampa Libera," urged anti-fascists to attend the fascist rally, 
attended by approximately 200 khaki shirts and black shirts. The Khaki 
Shirts were a fascist military organization in Philadelphia, composed of 
Italian and American fascists recruited by Arthur Smith. They boasted of 
having twenty-five thousand members, and their program proclaimed they 
would swear falsely, kill anti-fascists, act as spies, praise Mussolini, 
and abolish Congress and replace it with a council of dictators. They 
also made no secret of their intention to stage a "march on Washington" 
to establish a fascist dictatorship, similar to Benito Mussolini's in 
Italy. The movement provocatively organized a meeting in Columbus Hall 
in Little Italy, Astoria, a working-class neighborhood in New York City 
populated by Italians who had not forgotten the oppression and abuse of 
the fascists. Many come from Philadelphia armed with truncheons and are 
protected by the underworld. About twenty young anti-fascists also 
attend the demonstration out of curiosity, and when Adolfo Siani, after 
a priest's prayers, makes a defense of Mussolini, a worker shouts "Down 
with Mussolini," a cry that must be punished, and the truncheons of 
Smith's hitmen, who had come from Philadelphia, spring into action, 
beating him and throwing him out of the hall. Calabrian tailor and 
well-known designer Fortunato Velona is savagely beaten. Antonio Fierro 
intervenes to defend him. Surrounded by fascists-despite being 
unarmed-he defends himself "like a lion," throwing punches at the 
attackers. Smith strikes him several times in the head with his whip. 
Then he is suddenly struck from behind by a revolver shot, knocking him 
to the floor and dying within moments.

For three days, thousands upon thousands of people paid their respects 
to the body of the young victim, who lived at 22238 Adams Place in the 
Bronx. On July 19, the coffin, carried on the shoulders of twelve young 
anti-fascists, was saluted as it left the home by the Anti-Fascist 
United Committee and the moving chant of the "Internationale." A large 
red banner read: "The sacrifice of Antonio Fierro demands unity of 
action in the fight against fascism." The procession was very long, and 
the police chief requested that lines of six people be formed instead of 
two. In Woodlady Cemetery in the Bronx, as the coffin slowly lowered 
into the grave, the band once again played "Red Flag" and the "Hymn of 
the Fallen." A shower of red flowers paid their last respects to the 
murdered young man. His untimely death was stoically accepted by the 
family of whom he was the only child. On the evening of July 19, 1933, 
the New York newspaper of the Communist Party of the United States, the 
Daily Worker, published the photo and an article about the funeral on 
its front page, headlined that as many as twelve hundred people had 
attended.

Athos Terzani, a young Florentine anarchist taxi driver, is charged with 
second-degree murder. He immediately tells police that Fierro's killer 
is Frank Moffer, whose real name is Moddiferri. While awaiting trial, 
Terzani is released on $15,000 bail.

"L'Adunata dei Refrattari" reported the assassination on the front page 
of its July 22, 1933, issue, also publishing a photo of the young man 
murdered "on the altar of freedom." The assassination occurred on the 
eve of the arrival of Italo Balbo-"a symbol of fascist banditry," "a 
beast dripping with the generous blood of so many Italian proletarians," 
the murderer of Don Giovanni Minzoni, so that even from the United 
States the bloodthirsty leader could carry "the customary cup of pure, 
red blood"-who had flown across the Atlantic.

In "L'Adunata dei Refrattari" of August 5, 1933, his father, Michele 
Fierro, after thanking his comrades and friends who shared in the grief 
over the tragic death of his son, "fallen in a fascist ambush," wrote: 
"The pain has been immense, but the comfort has been great in the 
sincere solidarity of the proletarian family, who have felt the beauty 
of my son's sacrifice. I would have liked my Antonio to spend his twenty 
years in other, more fruitful struggles for good, but it is useless to 
defy fate. From my son's grave I draw new energy to defend the common 
idea and make him our holy vengeance."

The newspaper reports a writing by Antonio Fiero found in a notebook:

Freedom of the press, freedom of thought, has brought about this change 
in me. Only now do I appreciate freedom more, and I am also convinced 
that in a country where freedom of the press does not exist, lies 
reign.[...]I am not a Catholic because religion is a lie; I am not a 
Fascist, because fascism is synonymous with the bourgeoisie, that is, 
the enemy of the people, the enemy of the working class. In place of 
religion, I have substituted the struggle for freedom, for class 
equality; in place of fascism, I have substituted other, more precise 
ideas, which aim at another, more satisfying, more beautiful, more 
lovable goal. I still don't know which party to choose: Socialism, 
Communistism, or even Anarchism. I like the latter better, but before 
making a decision, I want to know things thoroughly.

Carlo Tresca organizes the Defense Committee, chaired by the famous 
lawyer Thomas Norman.

At the trial, which took place from December 11 to 13, 1933, the former 
khaki shirt, the Jew Samuel Wein, claimed that he had been forced-under 
death threats from Smith-to accuse Terzani in order to save Frank 
Moffer, the real murderer. In April 1934, Smith was sentenced to three 
to six years for perjury, and Frank Moffer, who admitted to the murder, 
was sentenced to five to ten years for first-degree manslaughter.

"The Assembly of the Refractory" comments: "Fascism is the same in every 
latitude, under every guise: obtuse, fanatical, mercenary, bestial, 
perfidious. It kills its adversaries, and it has the alibi of impunity 
ready, the lie intended to 'prove' that its adversaries... killed each 
other."

«L'Adunata dei Refrattari» never forgets and two years later, in the 
issue of 20 July 1935, it remembers Antonio Fierro with sympathetic 
lyricism:

Twenty years!

The age of dreams, of audacity, of illusions.

Twenty years old! The age at which a man reveals himself.

He grew up in Italy. Far from his parents,

The black storm of fascism had surprised him at the age when he was soft 
wax and a frail flower .

What a fine recruit today for the war... liberating Abyssinia!

He studied. School might have diverted the spontaneity of his generous 
sentiment.

The fascist school. The school reconsecrated to the priest and the 
policeman.

Poor Fierro! They would have crushed him-a robust young man-in those 
cogs of bearded, bespectacled lies. They would have gagged him in those 
twisted coils stuffed with supreme wisdom!

Paternal and maternal love saved him from the black prison.

He came to America and his soul found itself, took free flight, and 
released itself into our hopes.

He was one of us.

Rebels. Innovators.

The years would give him greater knowledge of men and things. With 
greater boldness.

And he was in the fray.

And he was one of the first.

And he fell under the gunman's fire.

And the merciful hands of his companions picked him up.

And now it's a symbol.

How many of the poor souls seized in Italy by the black regime; how many 
of those blindfolded youths would be ours-against the monster-in 24 
hours of light, of freedom, of breathing without gags, of marching 
without a corporal, of movement without a black straitjacket.

Time is a great ally of evildoers, for man forgets his misdeeds more 
than his merits.

Time... Two years have passed; but the memory of young Fierro-of this 
hero of the spirit, who had broken with his own hands the moral chains 
instilled in him by the school of fascist Jesuitism-the memory of this 
generous victim, is not extinguished in free men.

Nor will it go out!

Oh! what a fine recruit he would have been for the Blackshirts, if the 
care of a loving father and mother had not saved him from this far 
darker and more sinister fate.

Fierro fell. But as a free man for freedom.

How many of his peers, who grew up with him in their adolescence, now 
go, like slaughtered fodder, to fatten up the African Andes!

In chronological remembrance, let us bow to the fallen.

On July 18, 1936, "L'Adunata dei Refrattari" remembered him by 
publishing a new photo of him on the front page.

"L'Adunata dei Refrattari" of July 8, 1939, also recalls that Antonio 
Fierro was murdered by Italian and American fascists: "He was the first 
victim of fascism in America. And the purest," and concludes: "No one 
will ever know how much the revolutionary movement lost with the loss of 
this serious, cultured, enthusiastic young man, a youth full of promise. 
Fascism crushed him without giving him time to blossom."

The Palermo trade unionist and poet Antonino Crivello dedicates to him 
the poem «To Antonio Fierro killed by fascist lead»:

Always your heart that you devoted to the noble

Ideal of justice and virtue

he was full of love for the oppressed and hatred

for the oppressors and for slavery[...]

When they wanted to impose on you in high school

to wear the black shirt, you

you preferred exile to the vile outrage[...]

When Italy will finally be redeemed

and the world will have only one homeland

we will return to your tomb to spread

the red flowers of Liberty.

A monument stands in his honor in Woodladawn Cemetery, and in the marble 
is engraved:

He made a shield of his chest
to the freedom offended by fascism
and fell
on July 14, 1933.
This name, this love
are sacred to the soldiers of freedom.

Even today, unknown hands place flowers and red carnations on Antonio 
Fierro's tomb.

Joseph Galzerano

Bibliography:

1200 at Fierro funeral Pledge war on fascism , «Daily Worker», central 
organ of Communist Party USA, New York, vol. X, n. 172, July 19, 1933, p. 1.

For the orgy , «The Gathering of the Refractory», New York, A. XII, no. 
29, July 22, 1933, p. 1.

Michele Fierro, Declaration , «The Gathering of the Refractory», A. XII, 
n. 31, 5 August 1933, page 3.

Antonio Fierro. His act of faith , «L'Adunata dei Refrattari», A. XII, 
n. 31, 5 August 1933, p. 3.

j., Violent clash in New York between fascists and anti-fascists , «La 
Libertà», newspaper of the Anti-Fascist Concentration, Paris, A. VII, n. 
31, 3 August 1933, p. 4.
From New York. The funeral of Antonio Fierro , «La Libertà», newspaper 
of the Anti-Fascist Concentration, Paris, A. VII, n. 32, 10 August 1933, 
p. 4

Unworthy uproar , «L'Adunata dei Refrattari», A. XII, n. 32, 12 August 
1933, pp. 7-8.

A comrade, Antonio Fierro , «L'Adunata dei Refrattari», A. XII, n. 33, 
19 August 1933, page 7.

Astoria , «The Gathering of the Refractories», A. XII, n. 51-52, 23 
December 1933, p. 1-2.

From New York. Fascist Infamy Averted , «La Libertà», newspaper of the 
Anti-Fascist Concentration, Paris, A. VIII, no. 2, 11 January 1934, p. 2.

From New York. Fascist Crime , «La Libertà», newspaper of the 
Anti-Fascist Concentration, Paris, A. VIII, n. 15, 12 April 1934, p. 2.

The assassins of Antonio Fierro , «L'Adunata dei Refrattari», A. XIII, 
n. 18, 5 May 1934, page 3.

XIV July , «The Gathering of the Refractory», A. XIII, n. 28, 14 July 
1934, page 2.

Ar., Fierro (July 14: two years later), «L'Adunata dei Refrattari», A. 
XIV, n. 29, July 20, 1935, pp. 1 and 3.

Memento, «The Gathering of the Refractory», A. XVIII, n. 27, 8 July 
1939, page 8.

Antonino Crivello, Antonio Fierro killed by fascist lead , sd

Nunzio Pernicone, Carlo Tresca. Portrait of a Rebel , Anicia, Rome, 
2021, pp. 239-240.

Thirty Years of Anarchist Activity , L'Antistato Editions, Cesena, 1953, 
p. 168 - reprint Anonymous Comrades, 1914-1945 Thirty Years of Anarchist 
Activity , Samizdat Editions, Pescara, 2002, p. 198.

https://umanitanova.org/antonio-fierro-la-prima-vittima-del-fascismo-negli-stati-uniti/
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