Terrasini dedicates a street to labor leader Giuseppe Maniaci, killed by the mafia

From today, in Terrasini there is the street Giuseppe Maniaci. The new road, in the expansion area of the village, was inaugurated today with the unveiling of the plaque bearing the name of Maniaci, secretary of the Terrasini Federterra and leader of the communist party, killed by the mafia on October 22, 1947.

The naming, initiated by Cgil Palermo, took place in the presence of the mayor of Terrasini Giosuè Maniaci, the general secretary of Cgil Palermo Mario Ridulfo, and the head of the Legal Department of Cgil Dino Paternostro. Also present were his son Salvatore with his wife Mina, his grandson Giuseppe Maniaci, and his great-grandson Giuseppe Maniaci as well, in memory of the union leader.

“It took 77 years since his murder, but finally even in Terrasini the sacrifice of Giuseppe Maniaci is receiving the right recognition – declare the general secretary of Cgil Palermo Mario Ridulfo and Dino Paternostro, head of the Archives and historical memory department – Remembering him today, naming a street after him in his village, means indicating to the younger generations legality and social justice as the main path to build a free and just society.”

“The Maniaci affair – add Ridulfo and Paternostro – shows how union and political struggles in post-war Sicily not only managed to build social justice but also to snatch entire generations of young people from the clutches of organized crime. If he hadn’t met communist leaders like Scocimarro and Terracini, Giuseppe Maniaci risked remaining entangled in the nets of organized crime. Instead, he became a communist unionist of Cgil, who fought boldly and intelligently to defend poor laborers and farmers.”

Cgil asked the mayor to organize a meeting with schools to talk about the figure and commitment of Maniaci, and the mayor committed to ensuring that the memory of the Terrasini unionist can involve the younger generations in an educational path.

Maniaci was shot with a machine gun a few meters from his country house, in the Paternella district of Terrasini, on October 25, 1947. He was 38 years old. Maniaci was a farmer, married to Benedetta Pellerito, a seamstress: he left his wife pregnant with their second child, while the first was just a year old.

In the Portolongone prison, on the Island of Elba, where he was incarcerated for common crimes, he met communist leaders Mauro Scocimarro and Umberto Terracini. After Scocimarro, An encounter that changed his life. He began to have a political vision of social conflicts, became a conscious citizen, embraced communist ideas. At his death, the union and leftist forces denounced yet another political assassination of one of their representatives. But investigators immediately turned in another direction, private revenge, and he was accused of stealing some pounds of olives, excluding political motive. The three mafia men arrested, strongly suspected of the murder, Procopio Di Maggio, Leonardo Vitale, and Giuseppe Di Maggio were not even reported. The trial never took off and was closed in the investigatory phase because the perpetrators of the crime remained forever unknown.