1. Opener
For the next 5 mins. describe a situation in which you were accused of something that you didn’t do. Why were you accused? How did you feel?

2. Victims of Xenophobia or Guilty?
Sacco & Vanzetti
Victims of Xenophobia or Guilty?

3. Vanzetti was a fish peddler
Background
Sacco was a shoemaker
Vanzetti was a fish peddler

4. Both Italian immigrants
Anarchists: All forms of gov’t should be abolished

5. Both accused of murdering a paymaster & shoe store security guard
The Case
Both accused of murdering a paymaster & shoe store security guard

6. Neither had ever been accused of a prior crime

7. Paymaster carrying $15,000 in payroll receipts when shot
Money was never traced to either man

8. Referred to Sacco & Vanzetti as “Dagos”
Trial
Judge Webster Thayer
Not impartial
Referred to Sacco & Vanzetti as “Dagos”

9. Denounced their immigrant background & pol. beliefs
Refused repeated motions for new trial even after ind. council found unfair treatment in trial!

10. Both convicted of murder & sentenced to death
1927
Both convicted of murder & sentenced to death

11. Vanzetti - I wish to say to you that I am innocent
Vanzetti - I wish to say to you that I am innocent. I have never done a crime, some sins, but never any crime. I thank you for everything you have done for me. I am innocent of all crime, not only this one, but of all, of all.
I am an innocent man.

12. …Only because they were foreigners
Case Interpretation
…Only because they were foreigners
Xenophobia: Fear of strangers (foreigners)

13. Where are they coming from?
Remember the New Immigration?
Remember the New Immigration?
Remember the New Immigration?

14. Many wanted all foreigners out of US
Welcome
Sacco & Vanzetti represented everything Americans feared about foreigners

15. Some protests & riots ensued

16. For what it’s worth...
50 years to the day of executions, MA Gov Michael Dukakis cleared the names of Sacco & Vanzetti

17. The Death masks of Sacco & Vanzetti