Thomas Ludwig John D'Alesandro III was an American attorney and politician who served as the 43rd mayor of Baltimore from 1967 to 1971. He was the eldest brother of Speaker of the U.S. House of RepresentativesNancy Pelosi, and a son of former Baltimoremayor Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., who served from 1947 to 1959. The Baltimore riot of 1968 occurred during his tenure as mayor.
After military service, D'Alesandro entered into politics, becoming president of the Baltimore City Council in 1963. As City Council president, he worked with Mayor Theodore McKeldin, a liberal Republican, to eliminate racial barriers in employment, education and other areas.
Mayor of Baltimore
D'Alesandro ran for mayor in 1967 as a Democrat and easily defeated Republican challenger Arthur W. Sherwood, winning all 555 of the city's precincts. As Baltimore's 43rd mayor, he opened new schools, built a new police headquarters and pushed for open housing. D'Alesandro got Baltimoreans to approve an $80 million bond issue to build schools. He devised summer recreation programs for the city's youth, such as mobile pools and day camps, and also laid legislative groundwork for the Inner Harbor development. D'Alesandro's one term as mayor was dominated by civil unrest and budgetary troubles. In 1968 D'Alesandro ordered the relocation of the East-West Expressway, unstarted since 1941, to be rerouted through the Western Cemetery, then cancelled the project. He later implemented a HUD program to finance 475 of the vacant homes abandoned after they were previously condemned to create "homes for the poor". The homes were demolished in 1974, with The Rouse Company creditors abandoning the project. Just four months after D'Alesandro's inauguration, the Baltimore riot of 1968 erupted after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew called National Guard troops in to control the situation. D'Alesandro, who took office vowing to "root out every cause or vestige of discrimination", remained proud throughout his life of his progressive record on civil rights. As mayor, he appointed multiple African-Americans to his administration, some of them, such as George Russell Jr., the city solicitor and member of the Board of Estimates, the first African Americans to hold those positions. In 1971, D'Alesandro stepped down as mayor and retired from politics and went into private law practice. Years later, D'Alesandro insisted that the riots were not the reason that he walked away from politics. He said that the reason was simply that he had five children and his mayoral salary was not sufficient for him to support his family. In 1998, Jack Eddinger, D'Alesandro's former press secretary, wrote in The Baltimore Sun that "Tommy D'Alesandro was Baltimore's first modern mayor. He not only presided over its emergence as a Renaissance City that it is today, but he gave it unmatched leadership. Much of what other mayors get credit for began in those tumultuous four years, from urban design and labor law reform to streamlined governmental administration and the flowering of the vital alliance between the city and the Greater Baltimore Committee".
Death
D'Alesandro died after complications from a stroke at his home in North Baltimore on October 20, 2019, at the age of 90. His sister Nancy Pelosi said upon his death: "Tommy dedicated his life to our city. A champion of civil rights, he worked tirelessly for all who called Baltimore home. Tommy was a leader of dignity, compassion and extraordinary courage, whose presence radiated hope upon our city during times of struggle and conflict". At a CNN Town Hall in December 2019, Pelosi also noted that "his vision was to say that I want to rid our society of every vestige of discrimination and that was his call to action."
