Carmelo Zito

{{short description|Italian-born American anti-fascist (1899–1980)}}

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{{notability|Biographies|date=October 2018}}

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{{Infobox person

| name = Carmelo Zito

| image = File:Carmelo Zito.jpg

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| birth_date = August 13, 1899

| birth_place = Oppido Mamertina, Italy

| death_date = June 9, 1980 (aged 81)

| death_place = Sonoma, California

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| occupation = Journalist, Editor

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Carmelo Zito (August 13, 1899 – June 9, 1980), born in Oppido Mamertina, Italy and immigrated to the United States circa 1923, was an outspoken Italian American immigrant who operated the Il Corriere del Popolo Italian-language newspaper in San Francisco, California, from 1935 through 1966. He was active in the Italian anti-fascist movement in the United States. Family members relate that he fled Mussolini's regime after learning that he was targeted for execution by the Fascists.Facondo, Gabriella. Socialismo italiano esule negli (1930–1942). Quaderni della FIAP, Italy, 1993. However, local historians refer that Zito fled to the States after he shot with his hunting rifle, while drunk, a statue of the Virgin Mary: an event that infuriated the people of his village, who vehemently demonstrated against the act of blasphemy.{{Cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/30708543|title=Fascisti e antifascisti di Oppido Mamertina tra Calabria e America.pdf|first=Rocco|last=Liberti|access-date=10 December 2021|website=Academia.edu}}

A veteran of World War I, Zito moved to New York in 1923. He joined an anti-fascist paper there in 1925, then moved to San Francisco in 1931 and took over Il Corriere del Popolo. During World War II, he testified before congressional and state committees concerning fascist influences that he perceived in Italian-American political and civic organizations.Sebastian Fichera, Italy on the Pacific: San Francisco's Italian Americans (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), {{ISBN|978-1137002068}}, pp. 137ff. [https://books.google.com/books?id=obfFAAAAQBAJ&dq=carmelo+zito+%22corriere+del+popolo%22&pg=PA138 Excerpts available] at Google Books.James O. Clifford, [https://web.archive.org/web/20140611070652/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-624457.html "Documents Detail Mistreatment of WWII Italian Americans"], The Washington Post, December 26, 1999; Marino de Medici, [https://web.archive.org/web/20140611070654/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-499644.html "It Was No Witch Hunt"], The Washington Post, January 12, 2000, via HighBeam Research.{{Cite book|title=The Lost World of Italian American Radicalism: Politics, Labor, and Culture|last=Cannistraro & Meyer|first=Philip & Gerald|publisher=Praeger|year=2003|isbn=0275978915|pages=55}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lOXr4cSzXL0C&q=carmelo+zito&pg=PA55|title=The Lost World of Italian American Radicalism Google Book Search|last=Cannistraro & Meyer|first=Philip & Gerald|date=13 April 2019|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=9780275978914|archive-url=https://archive.today/20190413202056/https://books.google.com/books?id=lOXr4cSzXL0C&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=carmelo+zito&source=bl&ots=yxbj1nHqn_&sig=ACfU3U271bKstlKWlaCKxBdtf3wTdLNyWg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizs5CJ8s3hAhWP9Z4KHRxfCqoQ6AEwDHoECC4QAQ%23v=onepage&q=carmelo%20zito&f=false#v=onepage&q=carmelo%20zito&f=false|archive-date=13 April 2019|url-status=live|access-date=13 April 2019}}

He died on June 9, 1980.