1. Aim: What factors led to the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti?
Victims of Xenophobia or Guilty?

2. Do Now
Describe a situation in which you were accused of something that you didn’t do. Why were you accused? How did you feel?

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

9. 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.

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

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

12. Some protests & riots ensued

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