Jerry Essan Masslo (4 December 1959 – 25 August 1989)[1] was a South African refugee living in Italy who was murdered by a gang of criminals.

His case deeply affected public opinion on racism in Italy and led to a reform of Italian legislation regarding the recognition of refugee status.

The killing of Masslo resulted in the acknowledgement of the need to guarantee adequate rights and duties to immigrants, whose number had grown considerably in the 1980s, reaching 600,000 by 1990 according to some sources; 1.3 million according to others.

[3] The story of the non-recognition of refugee status to citizens of countries outside Eastern Europe led the government to rapidly issue a decree-law before the end of the year, later converted into the Martelli Law.

[5] Jerry Masslo was born in 1959 in Umtata (present-day Mthatha in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa), which was between 1976 and 1994 the capital of Transkei, a former bantustan (nominally independent land, set aside for black people during the apartheid regime).

He lived there in impoverished conditions in a hut made of wood and metal sheets, but yet managed to continue his studies in schools that were 'for blacks only'.

After the Transkei coup d'état of 1987, Masslo got his wife and two children to escape via Zimbabwe and eventually reached Lusaka (Zambia) where some of his family lived in exile.

[3] Helped by a friend, he travelled clandestinely, together with his younger brother, on a Nigerian cargo ship, hidden in a lifeboat and eating its emergency rations.

After selling his remaining possessions (including a gold watch from his father) he managed to buy a plane ticket to Rome, where he landed on 21 March 1988.

The Interior Ministry decided that he could not be granted asylum because not only was there the geographic restriction, there was also the matter that most of his fellow countrymen faced the same problems, and there was no personal persecution.

[7] Each morning, Masslo would join hundreds of immigrants at the crossroads of the village, nicknamed by locals as "piazza degli schiavi" (slaves' square) where the "caporalato" (illegal intermediary recruiter) would collect them to go to the fields for the harvest.

[10] The Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) asked for a state funeral for Masslo,[8][11] which was held on 28 August in the presence of Minister of Foreign Affairs Gianni De Michelis and other representatives and media.

"[12] Prominent figures spoke out against the act, including Pope John Paul II, who condemned the murder and called Masslo a "victim of intolerance"[3] and the president of the republic, Francesco Cossiga.

[2] It was not the first racist incident in the country to make the news: an Ethiopian woman had been forced to give up a seat on the bus, and a black man was thrown out of a window by another gang in Naples.

[8][13] In the subsequent summer, a tent city in Villa Literno called "Village of Solidarity" was built and named after Jerry Masslo to welcome the immigrant workers and provide them support.