Thomas D’Alesandro III, Pelosi's brother and former Baltimore mayor, dies at 90
Thomas D’Alesandro III, a former mayor of Baltimore and the brother of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, died Sunday at 90.
The Baltimore Sun reported D’Alesandro died in his North Baltimore home of complications from a stroke.
Affectionately called “Young Tommy,” D’Alesandro served as Baltimore’s mayor for one term, from 1967 to 1971. He led the city during the April 1968 riots after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and helped open schools and police headquarters.
“My husband Paul and our entire family are devastated by the loss of our patriarch, my beloved brother,” Pelosi said in a statement released by her office.
She remembered her brother as “the finest public servant” she knew, someone whose leadership was “a tribute to the Catholic values with which we were raised” and someone who dedicated his life to civil rights.
His presence, Pelosi said, “radiated hope” during times of strife.
“All his life, Tommy worked on the side of the angels. Now, he is with them,” she said.
D’Alesandro is survived by his wife, Margaret; his children, Thomas, Dominic, Nicholas, Patricia and Gregory; and his grandchildren, “whom he adored,” Pelosi said.
His death comes just days after Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, a longtime Maryland lawmaker whom Pelosi called her “brother in Baltimore,” died.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine