It’s been 86 years since the August 23, 1927 electrocution of two Italian-born anarchists in Massachusetts.
The two men, Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were charged with killing two men during an armed robbery of a shoe factory in South Braintree, Massachusetts in 1920.
Numerous witnesses placed the men in different places on the date and time of the robbery killings. According to witnesses, Sacco was in Boston’s North End, and Vanzetti, in Plymouth.
But such reports were to no avail, and both the court and press concentrated on the men’s anti-capitalist and anarchist beliefs, which were projected as evidence, not only of their radicalism, but of their guilt.
There was substantial conflicting evidence, both of ballistics and alleged eye-witnesses, but all of this was beside the point.
When the two men were arrested, they gave false names, more likely than not because they feared deportation. And they were armed. When pressed to explain in court why they were armed, they explained that they were anarchists, and in so doing, perhaps prejudiced the jury all the more.
When the two men filed post-trial motions, of course, after their conviction seeking a new trial, Judge Webster Thayer told a Darmouth college professor, “Did you see what I did to those anarchist bastards the other day?
What he did was deny them a new trial.
One of their many supporters was a Harvard Law professor, Felix Frankfurter, later a Supreme Court Justice, who wrote a piece showing their innocence published in the Atlantic magazine. .
In his speech before the Court, Vanzetti made the following moving observations: “I found myself compelled to fight back from my eyes the tears and quench my heart throbbing in my throat to not weep before him. But Sacco’s name will live in the hearts of the people when your name, your laws, institutions and your false gods are but a dim rememoring of a cursed past when man was wolf to the man.”
Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on August 23, 1927.
In 1977, the governor of Massachusetts issued an edict clearing the two anarchists –– 50 years after their electrocutions.
From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
![Prison Radio is sharing an abbreviated version of a press release covering recent racist incidents at SCI Rockview in PA and the organizing to demand accountability. We are reaching out to people incarcerated at Rockview as well as recently transferred folks, inviting them to call, in hopes of hearing commentaries from them.
Benner Township, PA.-
On November 24th, 2023, imprisoned people at SCI Rockview found two nooses hanging in the CO’s office, displayed visibly for many prisoners to see. When the prisoners asked the staff why the nooses were hung, they were told it was a joke.
By December 4th, prisoners filed a grievance to document what they saw, noting that the hanging of the nooses was “unethical, racially motivated, hateful, [a] deliberate debasement of black inmates" and “unsafe for inmates, staff, [and] the whole prison in general.” In the grievance, they demanded that Sgt. Mosser and CO Richard be fired and investigated for a hate crime, and for CO Kirchner to get therapy. Captain Andrews, the head of security, denied the grievance.
The sergeant and COs are still working in the prison to this day, with no repercussions...
As of March 10th, prisoners have reached out to Pennsylvania officials at the Dept. of Corrections in a letter campaign, sending 100 copies of the grievance. Copies of the letter also were mailed to Governor Shapiro, Senator Fetterman, Senator Street, and various advocacy groups. The demands for relief in the original grievance have now become the platform of demands for this campaign. About 20 of the 100 letters were withheld by the prison.
Activists on the outside are joining forces with prisoners to elevate their demands, flooding the phone lines of DOC offices, assisting with outreach to media, and circulating the stories of prisoners who have found unity in opposition to the facility's virulent institutional racism.
In any other workplace, hanging a noose would be grounds for immediate termination. However, Nicki Paul, the superintendent's assistant and "grievance coordinator" informed the public that they self-investigated their staff and found they did nothing wrong.
Read the full article at i
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