Bill de Blasio was born Warren Wilhelm Jr. on May 8, 1961. His mother was of Italian heritage, and his father was of German, English, French, and Scots-Irish ancestry. He changed his name to Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm in 1983 and finally to Bill de Blasio in 2001 to honor his maternal family. He served as New York’s Public Advocate from 2010 to 2013. He was elected mayor in 2013 and reelected in 2017.
About Bill de Blasio in brief
Bill de Blasio is an American politician serving as the 109th mayor of New York City since 2014. De Blasio was born Warren Wilhelm Jr. on May 8, 1961. His mother was of Italian heritage, and his father was of German, English, French, and Scots-Irish ancestry. He changed his name to Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm in 1983 and finally to Bill de Blasio in 2001 to honor his maternal family. He has supported socially liberal and progressive policies in regard to the city’s economy, urban planning, public education, police relations, and privatization. He ran in the Democratic primaries for the 2020 presidential election. After registering low poll numbers and failing to qualify for the third round of primary debates, he suspended his campaign on September 20, 2019, and endorsed Bernie Sanders five months later. In his first term, he implemented free universal Pre-K in the city. In 1984, de Blasio worked for the Urban Urban Fellows Program at the New York Department of Juvenile Justice. In 1987, he traveled to Quixote to work as a political organizer. In 1988, after completing graduate school at Columbia University, he was hired by the City Council to work for the Department of Youth and Family Services. He is a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee. He served as New York’s Public Advocate from 2010 to 2013. He was elected mayor in 2013 and reelected in 2017. His father committed suicide while suffering from incurable lung cancer when he was 18.
He graduated from New York University and Columbia University before a brief stint as a campaign manager for Charles Rangel and Hillary Clinton. His maternal grandfather, Giovanni, was from Sant’Agata de’ Goti, Benevento,. and his grandmother, Anna was from Grassano, Matera. His paternal uncle, Donald George Wilhelm Jr., secretly wrote the memoir of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran. His mother, Maria de Blasio, attended Smith College, served in the Office of War Information during World War II and authored The Other Italy: The Italian Resistance in World war II. His parents moved to Connecticut, where Warren became Texaco’s chief international economist, commuting to Manhattan by train. In 1966, the family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, when Walter was offered a job at Arthur D. Little, and de Blasio began kindergarten. In 1979, Bill was de Blasio graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he served in student government and was known to peers as “Senator Provolone” He is the third son of Maria Angela and Warren Wilhelm. He is from Norwalk, Connecticut, and was raised by his mother and her extended family, and has two older brothers, Steven and Donald. He started his career as an elected official on the New. York City Council, representing the 39th district in Brooklyn from 2002 to 2009. After serving one term as public advocate, he served as the public advocate until 2013.
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