Proudly Introducing the New and Improved Italian American Civil Rights League

Founded in the early 1970s in response to a growing trend of anti-Italian discrimination, the IACRL rededicates itself to that original purpose, while adapting to the challenges of the 21st century.

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Perhaps more than any other group, the contributions of Italian Americans have built America up over the past century and a half from a humble republic into a global superpower.  Italian Americans’ many contributions span this country’s entire cultural tapestry – from their nonpareil cuisine; to virtually every artform – music, architecture, opera, poetry, filmmaking – to politics; to sports – enriching the American experience every step of the way.  While our capital was named for the Father of our Nation, his name was paired with an Italian explorer – Christopher Columbus, the original discoverer of this land – whose revolutionary thrust into the unknown set the stage for the American Revolution some three hundred years later.

While our Founding was deeply indebted to British culture, the Founding Founders looked to the ancient world – specifically, the Roman world – for a template in republican government.  Indeed, the comparisons between America and Rome have been part of our cultural identity since the very beginning; John Adams found recourse in the timeless wisdom of Cicero, whereas Alexander Hamilton looked to Julius Caesar as the consummate statesman in the history of mankind.

The twentieth century was incontestably the American century, and it was the Italian American whose fruits arguably most impacted America’s self-conception after World War II.  While the likes of Irving Berlin and Cole Porter may have architected the American songbook, it was Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Jerry Vale who memorialized it forever in song. 

In sport, Italian Americans such as Jake LaMotta and Vince Lombardi achieved legendary statuses for their record-breaking achievements, and the romanticism that only an Italian can bring to elevate those athletic feats into a kind of poetry. Joe DiMaggio, perhaps the most famous Italian American sportsman of all, who to this day holds the record for the longest hit streak in MLB history (56), was mythologized by none other than Ernest Hemingway, who saw in the Yankee Clipper the personification for American greatness.

In film, it was a Sicilian, Frank Capra, who like a latter-day Michelangelo, sculpted the American everyman from cinematic marble, making him into a hero – and endeared the world to his humble nobility in films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life. 

Another Italian filmmaker, Francis Ford Coppola, put the greatest story ever to film by depicting the tragic rise and fall of the Corleone family as a kind of cinematic Shakespeare.  Michael Corleone’s destiny was in a very acute sense the destiny of the American empire, withered by its own ambition – in the public consciousness, the Corleone family tapped deeply into the familial consciousness of tens of millions of Americans who similarly came to these shores hoping for a taste of the American dream, only to be mugged by the gritty hand of reality once they arrived. 

In politics, the names LaGuardia, Giuliani, and Cuomo have lorded over New York, the most powerful state in the Union, throughout the twentieth and well into the twenty-first centuries.  Donald Trump’s ascension to the Presidency, the greatest President in generations, was arguably prefigured by Rudy Giuliani, America’s mayor, more than anyone else, who led New York through its darkest hour in the aftermath of the September 11^th attacks, and likely inspired his good friend, the future president, with his own bid for the presidency in 2008. 

On the Supreme Court, two of the most stalwart defenders of the Constitution have been Italians: Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito.  Scalia’s vigorous impact on a generation of High Court opinions pervades the thinking of judges and legal scholars to this very day; the three Trump-appointed justices – Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney-Barrett – who have followed in his wake are chiefly indebted to the judge’s, affectionately known as “Nino,” larger-than-life legacy, viewing him as the model par excellence for conservative jurisprudence. 

Italy is the birthplace of Western civilization.  It was where Cicero translated Plato, Hellenizing Rome in the process, and also where, a generation later, St. Paul brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Romans, replacing the pagan gods with a new God that would revolutionize not just Rome, but all of mankind.  Even a millennia after Rome’s fall, the highest fruits of Western culture came from Italy; a Dominican friar named Thomas Aquinas revivified Aristotle in the 1200s, a poet named Dante Alighieri consecrated St. Augustine great works to prose in the Divine Comedy in the 1300s. 

Around the same time, Cicero’s works – the foremost conduit to the ancient world – were rediscovered in Florence by the scholar Petrarch, giving birth – indeed, rebirth – to the ancient world’s unequaled cultural riches, initiating a Renaissance that produced some of the greatest artists and minds in history: DaVinci, Michelangelo, Raphael.  It was also in Florence where modernity’s roots were first laid, with a philosopher named Machiavelli, a contemporary and friend of Leonardo’s, who penned The Prince and The Discourses on Livy whilst in exile. The latter work was modeled on the writings of Xenophon, a contemporary of both Socrates and Plato. In these writings Machiavelli laid the groundwork for Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke, the latter whom directly inspired Thomas Jefferson when he penned our Declaration of Independence.

Even Shakespeare, himself deeply influenced by the Renaissance, would set some of his finest plays in the Italian world – both ancient (like Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra) and modern (like Romeo and Juliet); the world-historic success of his plays is testimony to the universality of shared human experiences and principles that originated in, though stretched far beyond, the geographic limits of the Italian peninsula.

America is named for an Italian: Amerigo Vespucci.  It was the age of Italian Exploration that led directly to its founding. Tragically, that venerable history is now under attack – more than ever before, with attempts by cultural Marxists, woke historical revisionists, and out-and-out American-hating communists, to desecrate everything that made this country great.  

Donald Trump was the first President to unreservedly support Christopher Columbus – as well as the other statues of great men that have been targets of Left-wing attacks.  However, his initiative requires the support of tens of millions of like minded followers, who similarly cherish and seek to preserve that great wellspring of tradition and history.  For his noble efforts, Trump – and others who have allied themselves with his movement, such as Rudy Giuliani and Roger Stone – have been scapegoated by the enemies of the republic.  

Being that they are spiritually communist, these enemies of course most revile the highest and most sacred fruit of Western civilization: Italian culture – its beauty, art, and most especially of all, the Christian religion incubated for millennia in the Roman Catholic Church. 

It is for this reason, more than ever, that groups proud of their ancient heritage must mobilize and now start to go on the offensive.  This is the clarion cry to reignite the Italian American Civil Rights League (“IACRL”), a group headed by none other than Roger Stone (who is Italian through his mother’s lineage), who brings decades of political insight and wisdom, being a trusted acolyte of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump.  

Rounding out the IACRL’s leadership are: Mike Crispi, a New Jersey native, former congressional candidate, and talk show host of the widely acclaimed Rumble show, Unafraid; Giancarlo Ghione, a battle-tested litigator based out of New Jersey; Sal Greco, a 14-year veteran of the NYPD and proud Sicilian American; and Paul Ingrassia, a law clerk for Joseph McBride’s law firm and political writer. 

The IACRL’s mission statement is as follows:

“The IACRL’s mission is to honor Italian traditions, celebrate our family values, and recognize those contributing to our culture’s successes. At the same time, it is our intention to educate the American people about anti-Italian American bias and persecution, and, above all, to fight anti-American discrimination both through the judicial system and in the public arena.”

Although the organization is run by Italian Americans, its membership is open to anyone who shares our mission statement and commitment to traditional American values and the preservation of our way of life.  Membership, which is now open to the public, is divided into four classes: from “Paisans Membership,” at $50 per year, all the way up to “Patron Membership,” at $1,000 per year. 

As it grows in members, the organization plans to eventually host many events in tribute to the Italian American experience, including an annual gala, a Columbus Day annual celebration, group dinners, trips to Italy, and other community events to spread the mission and revive its founding charter. 

Originally founded in the early 1970s in response to a growing trend of anti-Italian discrimination in American society, the revived IACRL rededicates itself to that original purpose, while adapting to the challenges of the twenty first century.  To that end, the IACRL will be not just a social organization, but an activist group, and lead the efforts to combat radical attempts to sabotage our honored history from both sides of the political aisle.  We are a nonpartisan group, though we have deep-seated convictions that will guide our endorsements of political candidates, as demonstrated in our very first endorsement of Donald J. Trump for President in 2024.

For more information about the organization, please visit IACRL.org.  We hope you will join us!

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Paul Ingrassia is a Law Clerk at The McBride Law Firm, PLLC. He graduated from Cornell Law School in 2022 and is on the Board of Advisors of the New York Young Republican Club. He is also a two-time Claremont Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @PaulIngrassia, Substack, Truth Social, and Rumble.

Mike Crispi is a nationally syndicated talk show host and New Jersey political operative. He hosts one of the most popular daily shows streaming on Rumble, “Mike Crispi Unafraid.” Follow him on Twitter @MikeCrispiNJ.