Thomas J. D’Alesandro III RPPC Christmas Card

Thomas J. D’Alesandro III, the scion of a Maryland political dynasty who led Baltimore as mayor during the 1968 riots after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., left politics and decades later saw his sister, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, pick up the family mantle, died Oct. 20 at his home in Baltimore. He was 90.

Known as “Young Tommy,” Mr. D’Alesandro was the oldest son of Thomas J. “Big Tommy” D’Alesandro Jr., who had been one of Maryland’s dominant civic leaders in the mid-20th century as a state delegate, congressman and, from 1947 to 1959, the mayor of Baltimore. Pelosi, Mr. D’Alesandro’s youngest sibling and only sister, grew up to become a California congresswoman and twice the nation’s most powerful female elected official.