Francesco Renda
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Francesco Renda | |
|---|---|
| Born | 18 February 1922 Cattolica Eraclea, Sicily |
| Died | 12 May 2013 (aged 91) Palermo |
| Occupation(s) | historian, Communist politician and a university professor |
Francesco Renda (18 February 1922 – 12 May 2013) was an Italian Marxist historian, Communist politician and a university professor.
Renda was born in Cattolica Eraclea in Sicily. He graduated in philosophy. At a young age he enrolled in the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano – PCI). He became Secretary in charge of Camera Confederale del Lavoro in Agrigento.[1]
He was an eye-witness of the Portella della Ginestra massacre, when 11 people were killed and 27 wounded during May Day celebrations in Sicily on May 1, 1947, by the bandit and separatist leader Salvatore Giuliano and his band. That May morning he was supposed to speak at Portella, but due to a defect of his motorcycle he arrived late. "Before my eyes this horrific tragedy happened," Renda recalls. Immediately after the massacre, the peasants of Piana wanted their own justice, threatening to kill the mafiosi of their county. "I convinced them,” Renda remembered, "that that would have been the provocation needed to outlaw the Communists."[2]
