On August 23rd, 1927, the State of Massachusetts executed immigrant anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, after an international campaign to stop their execution. This page is a tribute to their memory.
Nicola Sacco was born in Italy and emigrated to the United States in 1908. With Bartolomeo Vanzetti he was arrested on charges of murdering a shoe factory paymaster and guard at South Braintree, Massachusetts. They were tried and convicted in an atmosphere of anti-radical hysteria. The trial ended July 14, 1921, and they were electrocuted August 23, 1927. During the years of their incarceration, widespread doubt of their guilt reached worldwide proportions resulting in protest. Many books and articles, written by those in and out of the legal profession, have left detailed accounts of one of the most controversial and best known cases in United States history.
Bartolomeo Vanzetti was arrested with Nicola Sacco on charges of murdering a shoe factory paymaster and guard in South Braintree, Massachusetts, and convicted on July 14, 1921, Vanzetti left a most moving articulate statement of the vindication of Sacco and himself in an atmosphere of hysteria the two were sentenced to die and were electrocuted on August 23, 1927. With the encouragement of supporters, Vanzeffi issued letters and articles from his prison cell and displayed a highly sensitive intelligence despite the fact that he was largely self-educated. The Sacco-Vanzetti case inspired controversy reaching worldwide proportions. Belief in their innocence became widespread as they were seen to be victims of antianarchist hatred.
Neither has been officially cleared of the charges against them in the State of Massachusetts although considerable pressure has periodically mounted to bring this about.
(Irving Horowitz, The Anarchists, 1964, Dell Publishing)
News and Commentary
- Still Controversial – Sacco & Vanzetti
- Sacco and Vanzetti finally find their streets of gold
- Boston to honor Sacco and Vanzetti
Links
- The Blackest Hour — Musical composition by Stephen J. Grieco honoring Sacco and Vanzetti.
- The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti — by Felix Frankfurter, Atlantic Magazine, 1927
- Vanzetti’s Last Statement
- The Never-Ending Wrong, by Katherine Anne Porter — Another perspective on the Sacco and Vanzetti case, by a famous author.
- The Trial of The Century? — A comparison between the O.J. and the Sacco and Vanzetti trials.
- The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti
- Overview of The Sacco-Vanzetti Case from the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania.
- Sacco and Vanzetti Trial
- The Sacco Vanzetti Case & The Grim Forces
- Sacco-Vanzetti and The Red Peril
- The Story of the Sacco-Vanzetti Case including an analysis of the trial
- There is justice: a summary of the Sacco-Vanzetti case.
- Labor’s martyrs : Haymarket 1887, Sacco and Vanzetti 1927 / by Vito Marcantonio ; introduction by Wm. Z. Foster.
- Background of the Plymouth trial
- The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti in Cartoons from The Daily Worker
- Conspiracy against Sacco and Vanzetti
- Decision of Gov. Alvan T. Fuller in the matter of the appeal of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco from sentence of death imposed under the laws of the commonwealth.
- President A. L. Lowell of Harvard, President S. W. Stratton of M.I.T., Judge Robert Grant and Governor Fuller of Massachusetts in the presence of Vanzetti. Historic analysis of their murderous unreason made by Vanzetti just before they strapped him in the electric chair and threw the switch.
- Ten Questions That Have Never Been Answered!
Bibliography
- The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Nicola Sacco, Marion Denman Frankfurter (Editor), Gardner Jackson. Rpt Edition Paperback, 320 pages. Published by Penguin USA (Paper). Publication date: August 1, 1997. Dimensions (in inches): 7.80 x 5.12 x .91. ISBN: 0141180269. List: $13.95
- Sacco and Vanzetti: the anarchist background by Paul Avrich. Hardcover, 265 pages. Published by Princeton Univ Press. 1991
