“Remembering Sacco and Vanzetti” : Performance and Video

Watch this video featuring a reading/performance by David Margulies and Maria Barrientos, artwork by Marc Shanker, based on the letters of Sacco and Vanzetti to friends and family, and statements to the court. Performances of “Remembering Sacco and Vanzetti” were held at The Word-Up Bookstore, NYC, and The Anarchist Book Fair, NYC.

Shortly after midnight on August 23, 1927, 36-year-old Nicola Sacco and 39-year-old Bartolomeo Vanzetti were electrocuted in Charlestown prison in Massachusetts.

Their trial was a travesty of justice. Sacco and Vanzetti were Italian immigrants, both active anarchists, who were found guilty of robbery and murder. A seven-year appeal process during which the two men were separated and often held in solitary confinement, proved fruitless.

Remember: Poster

I first learned of Sacco and Vanzetti from my father. He was of that generation. In my early teens, when I was becoming politically active, my father said, “If you want to learn about politics, read the letters of Sacco and Vanzetti.”

Some thirty years later, I found a book of their letters in a small storefront bookstore in a remote fishing village in northern Maine. It took me almost ten years to finally read the book cover-to-cover. Joan Baez called Sacco and Vanzetti “America’s most famous political prisoners.”

Their trial and execution were imprinted on the moral conscience of an entire generation. Their execution has been described as “an unending wrong.” It serves as a warning against prejudice and xenophobia.

You can purchase the poster at Gravity Free Press.