Rage Against the Machine’s guitarist, Tom Morello, recently posted a photo on his Instagram account and revealed that he is a relative of Giuseppe ‘the Clutch Hand’ Morello who was the first boss of the Morello crime family which then came to be known as the Genovese crime family in New York.
Tom Morello is definitely known for his successful music career but also his interesting family roots. As you know, he’s the son of the American activist Mary Morello who is of Italian and Irish descent, and Ngethe Njoroge from Kenya who denied the paternity of his son when Tom was just 16 months old.
As mentioned above, Mary Morello has Italian and Irish roots, which brings to mind the famous American-Italian Morello crime family. As it turns out, Giuseppe ‘the Clutch Hand,’ who was the founder of the Morello crime family, known today as the oldest of the five crime families in New York, is Tom Morello’s distant cousin.
In his recent Instagram post, Morello talked about how his roots extend to the famous American-Italian crime family and said that Giuseppe evolved his small street gang to the Morello crime family which was ‘the largest, most influential Sicilian crime family in New York City’ and all the other families ended up calling him ‘boss of bosses.’
Here’s what Tom Morello said in the caption of his Instagram post:
“Born in Corleone, Sicily, in 1876, Giuseppe ‘the Clutch Hand’ Morello was the first boss of the Morello crime family. He was famous for having a one-fingered deformed right hand that resembled a claw. In the 1890s, Giuseppe founded a gang known as the 107th Street Mob, which would later evolve into the Morello crime family (today the Genovese crime family, the oldest of the Five Families in New York City). By 1905, Morello had created the largest, most influential Sicilian crime family in New York City and was recognized as ‘capo di tutti capi’ (boss of bosses) by Mafia leaders in other U.S. cities. #DistantCousinSaturday”
Click here to check out the photo that Tom Morello posted on his Instagram account.
