Sacco and Vanzetti: Martyrs of the Red Scare

Sitting off Route 1 in Boston, the now-closed Charleston State Prison is the type of historical site that some people would rather forget. During its usage from 1803 to 1955, the prison housed the infamous, the unknown, and, as in the case of the two Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the allegedly innocent. On August 23rd of 1927, Both Sacco and Vanzetti were executed at the prison in the electric chair for a crime that many believed they did not commit. Their trial and execution sparked protests around the world, and is still debated today due to its specific historical context and the resulting intricacies of their case.

Sacco and Vanzetti: In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

Sacco and Vanzetti were two Italian immigrants living in Boston during the height of the “Red Scare:” a period of time from 1917-1920 when capitalism and its exploitation of immigrants caused them to seek out and enact communist or anarchist agendas. Sacco and Vanzetti were both members of the anarchist party who met when an anarchist agenda first began to gain traction in the United States. Despite their political affiliations, neither man’s day-to-day life went against the societal grain. Sacco was a shoemaker with a family, who had immigrated to the United States from Italy in 1908. Vanzetti was a fish peddler who arrived in the United States the same year as Sacco. Aligned in their politics, they became friends when they began attending the same meetings. Both men opposed the U.S.’s involvement in the First World War, even fleeing to Mexico together in 1917 in order to avoid enlisting. Sacco and Vanzetti returned to the United States in 1920. During their three years abroad, the Red Scare had reached its apex. Class tensions were at an all time high, as was paranoia surrounding anarchists and communism. It was in this tense climate that a shoe-factory paymaster carrying $15,700 and his escort were murdered on May 5th, 1920. The next day, Sacco and Vanzetti were en route back home from a garage that held a car associated with the crime. They were found carrying guns and arrested.

Their Infamous Trial

Sacco and Vanzetti’s trial was highly controversial for a couple reasons. One, the strong societal bias against immigrants and anarchists brought sensationalized attention to the case and, many argue, swayed a guilty verdict. Two, while some evidence pointed towards their involvement in the murder, much of it conflicted and the narrative contained gaping holes, such as what happened to the money they allegedly stole or the fact that neither Sacco and Vanzetti had a criminal record. Despite these inconsistencies, the two were found guilty within a little over a year of their arrest and sentenced to the death penalty. Sacco and Vanzetti were held at Charleston State Prison for six years. During this time, their case reached worldwide notoriety. The public felt strongly that the verdict was fueled by prejudice, and people weighed in from around the globe defending their innocence. As the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote:

“[the] men were castaways upon our shore, and we, an ignorant savage tribe, have put them to death because their speech and their manners were different from our own, and because to the untutored mind that which is strange is in its infancy ludicrous, but in its prime evil, dangerous, and to be done away with.’’

Meanwhile, Sacco and Vanzetti both wrote letters from their prison cells that displayed their philosopher’s minds, their humanity, and—in the perspective of many—their innocence. Sacco maintained hope throughout his incarceration, writing that “between these turbulent clouds, a luminous path run always toward the truth.”

Sacco and Vanzetti’s Execution

The publicity and appeals of Sacco and Vanzetti’s case did nothing to sway their sentence. On August 23rd, 1927, both men underwent the same process for death by electrocution. The executions galvanized protests around the world, with bombs going off in New York City and Philadelphia in the days leading up to it. As Time Magazine put it, “if the justice system had started out by making an example of Sacco and Vanzetti, it ended up making martyrs of them.” Scholars today still discuss the case, believing that the confluence of political circumstances aligned to find two possibly innocent men guilty, with not enough evidence in either direction to warrant their fate.