Galleani published Cronaca Sovversiva ( Subversive Chronicle), a periodical that advocated violent revolution, and a bomb-making manual called La Salute è in voi! ( Salvation Is within You!). The men were believed to be followers of Luigi Galleani, an Italian anarchist who advocated revolutionary violence, including bombing and assassination. Both left Italy for the US in 1908, although they did not meet until a 1917 strike. Vanzetti was a fishmonger born June 11, 1888, in Villafalletto, Province of Cuneo, Piedmont region. Before immigrating, according to a letter he sent while imprisoned, Sacco worked on his father's vineyard, often sleeping out in the field at night to prevent animals from destroying the crops. ![]() Sacco was a shoemaker and a night watchman, born April 22, 1891, in Torremaggiore, Province of Foggia, Apulia region (in Italian: Puglia), Italy, who migrated to the United States at the age of seventeen. On August 23, 1977-the 50th anniversary of the executions-Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names". Additional ballistics tests and incriminating statements by the men's acquaintances have clouded the case. The publication of the men's letters, containing eloquent professions of innocence, intensified belief in their wrongful execution. ![]() Investigations in the aftermath of the executions continued throughout the 1930s and '40s. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair just after midnight on August 23, 1927. After weeks of secret deliberation that included interviews with the judge, lawyers, and several witnesses, the commission upheld the verdict. Fuller appointed a three-man commission to investigate the case. Responding to a massive influx of telegrams urging their pardon, Massachusetts governor Alvan T. The two were scheduled to die in April 1927, accelerating the outcry. Even the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was convinced of their innocence and attempted to pressure American authorities to have them released. Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter argued for their innocence in a widely read Atlantic Monthly article that was later published in book form. Ĭelebrated writers, artists, and academics pleaded for their pardon or for a new trial. In 1927, protests on their behalf were held in every major city in North America and Europe, as well as in Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Montevideo, Johannesburg, and Auckland. As details of the trial and the men's suspected innocence became known, Sacco and Vanzetti became the center of one of the largest causes célèbres in modern history. By 1926, the case had drawn worldwide attention. All appeals were denied by trial judge Webster Thayer and also later denied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The appeals were based on recanted testimony, conflicting ballistics evidence, a prejudicial pretrial statement by the jury foreman, and a confession by an alleged participant in the robbery. A series of appeals followed, funded largely by the private Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee. ![]() Anti-Italianism, anti-immigrant, and anti-anarchist bias were suspected as having heavily influenced the verdict. ![]() Seven years later, they were executed in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison.Īfter a few hours' deliberation on July 14, 1921, the jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of first-degree murder and they were sentenced to death by the trial judge. Nicola Sacco ( pronounced Ap– August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti ( pronounced J– August 23, 1927) were Italian immigrant anarchists who were controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a guard and a paymaster, during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Anarchist trial defendants Bartolomeo Vanzetti (left) and Nicola Sacco (right)
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