Cecile Kyenge

Despite multiple racist attacks — including a banana-throwing incident at a recent political rally — Italy’s first black is defending her adopted homeland, insisting the country is…

ROME (AP) — The vice president of Italy’s Senate rejected calls for his resignation Tuesday for making a racist slur against Italy’s first black Cabinet minister, but said he was sorry and would send her flowers to make amends. Roberto Calderoli, a leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League, has been criticized by Italy’s president, premier […]

On April 17th, Cecile Kyenge was named Italy’s first black government Minister. Kyenge is Italy’s new Minister for Integration. She was born in the Congo and moved to Rome in the 1980’s to study medicine. While working at a hospital in Modena, Kyenge met her Italian husband, who was a surgery patient in the hospital. […]

ROME (AP) — Premier Enrico Letta has harshly criticized a top Italian senator who likened the country’s first black Cabinet minister to an orangutan, the latest high-profile racist episode in a nation grappling with immigration. In a statement Sunday, Letta denounced Roberto Calderoli‘s words as “unacceptable” and “beyond every limit.” Calderoli, the Senate’s vice president […]

On April 17th, Cecile Kyenge was named Italy’s first black government Minister. Kyenge is Italy’s new Minister for Integration. She was born in the Congo and moved to Rome in the 1980’s to study medicine. While working at a hospital in Modena, Kyenge met her Italian husband who was a surgery patient in the hospital. […]

ROME (AP) — Italy’s first black Cabinet minister, targeted by racist slurs following her appointment last week, said Friday that Italians aren’t racist but that some are merely ignorant of other cultures and the “richness” that immigration can bring. Congolese-born surgeon Cecile Kyenge held a news conference to introduce herself to Italians so they could […]