Boston Public Library

On Aug. 23, 1927, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Boston for the murders of two men during a 1920 robbery. They were exonerated in 1977 by Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts.

The New York Times article about the execution reported, “To the last they protested their innocence, and the efforts of many who believed them guiltless proved futile, although they fought a legal and extra legal battle unprecedented in the history of American jurisprudence.”

The Times article also reported that Mr. Sacco’s last words included a call of “Long live anarchy” in his native Italian, and farewells to his wife, children, friends and mother in English.

Mr. Vanzetti used his final moments to again assert his innocence and offer forgiveness to those involveduniting to overcome the rationality, wisdom, and fairness to which our legal system aspires.”

Connect to Today:

In a 2007 Op-Ed article in The New York Times, Andrea Camilleri, an Italian novelist, discussed the enduring legacy of the case in Italy, noting, “There is probably not a single Italian newspaper that has not devoted an article to the case every Aug. 23 from 1945 to the present.”

Mr. Camilleri also noted the inspiration the story of Sacco and Vanzetti has been for artists working in a variety of media who strove to show sympathy for the men–some, decades after the men had been executed. These include films by Giuliano Montaldo and Sidney Lumet, music by Ruth Crawford (Seeger), Marc Blitzstein and Woody Guthrie (who recorded an album about the men in