Gil Fagiani: Friend, Mentor, Activist, Poet

Abstract

Research Article| January 01 2021 Gil Fagiani: Friend, Mentor, Activist, Poet Stephen Siciliano; Stephen Siciliano STEPHEN SICILIANO has been writing professionally for forty years. As a journalist he has worked for the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., L.A. Business Journal, L.A. Weekly, L.A. Downtown News, and Bloomberg Law. He is the author of two novels, Vedette or Conversations with the Flamenco Shadows, and The Sidewalk Smokers Club. His manuscript on the life and times of Rep. Vito Marcantonio, The Goodfather, is being readied for publication. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Gene Bild; Gene Bild GENE BILD, a Chicago-born “red diaper baby,” has worked for more than seven decades to realize the aims of his extended family of progressive social activists. As an eight-year-old, he marched for nuclear disarmament, and as a sixteen-year-old, he was arrested at sit-ins to desegregate Chicago public schools. In Chicago’s Grant Park, he protested amid tear gas during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. After White Lightning disbanded, Bild campaigned for the late Harold Washington, the first Black mayor of Chicago. After earning an MS at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, Bild taught math for twenty-six years in a public high school. There he helped his students form a Gay-Straight Alliance chapter and his colleagues organize a teachers’ union. Now retired, Bild spends his spare time encouraging select politicians to join him in retirement. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Gerald Meyer; Gerald Meyer GERALD MEYER, a founding member of the faculty of Hostos Community College (CUNY), authored Vito Marcantonio: Radical Politician 1902-1954 (SUNY Press, 1989), co-edited The Lost World of Italian American Radicalism: Politics, Labor, and Culture (Praeger, 2003), and has published more than ninety articles and reviews on a wide range of subjects. Meyer serves on the editorial boards of Socialism and Democracy and Science and Society, has appeared in a number of documentaries, reviews manuscripts for publication, and lectures widely. Meyer has been politically active since he was a teenager. Currently he is co-chair of the Vito Marcantonio Forum. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Roger D. Harris; Roger D. Harris ROGER D. HARRIS attended Cornell University as an undergraduate and the University of California, Berkeley, for graduate school. He did community organizing in East Harlem with Gil Fagiani. He taught political science at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. A certified wildlife biologist, he is now active working on conservation and human rights issues, including with the Task Force on the Americas, US Peace Council, and the Council of Hemispheric Affairs. He regularly writes for Counterpunch, MintPress News, Dissident Voice, and Transcend Media Service. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google James Tracy James Tracy JAMES TRACY teaches at City College of San Francisco. He is the co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times (Melville House, 2011), and No Fascist USA! The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Movements (City Lights, 2020). He authored Dispatches Against Displacement: Field Notes From San Francisco’s Housing Wars (AK Press, 2014). He was part of the Italian-American Political Solidarity Club, which mobilized Italian Americans against racism and produced the book Avanti Popolo: Italian-Americans Sail Beyond Columbus (Manic D Press, 2007). Tracy is the co-founder of the San Francisco Community Land Trust and serves as the political director for the American Federation of Teachers 2121. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Italian American Review (2021) 11 (1): 55–67. https://doi.org/10.5406/italamerrevi.11.1.0055 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Stephen Siciliano, Gene Bild, Gerald Meyer, Roger D. Harris, James Tracy; Gil Fagiani: Friend, Mentor, Activist, Poet. Italian American Review 1 January 2021; 11 (1): 55–67. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/italamerrevi.11.1.0055 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressItalian American Review Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2021 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2021 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.