SVCS
33 Harrison Av.
5th. Floor
Boston, MA 02111
Postal address:
P.O. Box 381323
Cambridge, MA 02238-1323
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How to honor victims of political violence 08/30/2010 [DOCUMENTS] - Commemoration of Sacco and Vanzetti Speech by Pasqualino Colombaro
It was a very fortunate intuition six years ago to form a Committee for the commemoration of Sacco and Vanzetti. Because the very image that the story of the two Anarchists evokes, is replete with valuable teachings and meanings for all those who today dare to struggle for a free and egalitarian way of life for all.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were two ordinary human beings, two workers, two immigrants from Italy like millions of others. With one difference: they had the spark of critical consciousness awoken within their hearts. They were self-professed Anarchist labor and community activists who had the misfortune to gravitate around a Massachusetts Italian Anarchist enclave headed by Luigi Galleani, an Italian Anarchist intellectual who passionately and convincingly advocated for the propaganda of the deed, i.e.: targeted violent action against the system of oppression, which included bomb throwing and assassinations.
Yesterday Sacco and Vanzetti; now Tarek Mehanna08/30/2010 [DOCUMENTS] - Speech by Laila Murad from the Tarek Mehanna Defense Committee at the Sacco Vanzetti Memorial 2010
Today many of us have been reminded of the case of Sacco and Vanzetti. Theirs is a case that has been referred to as "the case that never goes away" and it is indeed a case that we saw in the years before it even began and one that we have seen countless times in the 83 years since.
Over the decades we have seen the FBI’s COINTELPRO attack on communities to crush movements of struggle and dissent such as the Black Panther Party, Black Liberation Army, Puertro Rican Independence Movement, American Indian Movement and Earth Liberation Movement.
Over the past 10 or so years, we have seen the War on Terror targeted primarily Muslims and people of Arab and South Asian decent, as well anarchists and radical environmentalists.
Annual Rally/March Commemorates Sacco and Vanzetti Trial; Supports Tarek Mehanna BOSTON/North End - August 22, 2010. – Despite steady rain, approximately 40 people came out Sunday afternoon to the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration’s Society 5th annual rally and march to commemorate the 83rd anniversary of the 1927 executions of Italian immigrant anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
The rally began in Copley Square and included a speech by labor and immigrant rights activist Sergio Reyes, as well as performances of songs about various political struggles. An hour into the rally, flanked by Boston police officers, the group began a march through the streets of Boston to the North End’s Paul Revere Mall. Participants held anarchist banners, waved black and red flags and played commemorative music from a cart. Reyes remained in front with a bullhorn, periodically shouting “Sacco and Vanzetti” with the crowd responding “Presente!”
Fifth Annual Sacco and Vanzetti March and Rally - Sunday, August 22. For the Fifth time the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society will march and rally to remember Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, their lives, their struggle and their martyrdom.
We are calling people to start gathering at Copley Square, Boston, by the water fountain, at 2pm. We will start marching at 3pm towards the North End for a rally at the Paul Revere Mall at 4pm. All individuals and organizations are welcome to bring your own signs and slogans.
This year a candlelight memorial for Sacco and Vanzetti will be held beginning at midnight Sunday, August 22, in Charlestown, close to the actual site of the executions and at the same time they occurred. Bunker Hill Community College now stands where most of the old prison once stood. The memorial will begin at the corner of New Rutherford Avenue and Austin Street, at the Austin St Bridge [known formerly as the Prison Point Bridge.] Selections from the letters of the two men will be read during the vigil.
To download a flyer click here.
For the press release click here.
To view a rare picture of the old Charlestown Prison click here.
Sacco and Vanzetti commemorated in Italy with a vigil for human rights in 2010 The Sacco and Vanzetti Association will commemorate Sacco and Vanzetti Day with a vigil for human rights on Monday, August 23rd, 8PM at Torremaggiore. In particular the Association will concentrate on demanding that the Italian government allow the reentry into Italy of a nigerian national, Faith Aiworo. Faith Aiworo, 23 years old, was arrested and deported from Italy to Nigeria, her country of origin. She now risks death by hanging, in contempt of the Geneva Convention and international agreements regulating humanitarian protection and aid. During the vigil there will be a table with information about the rights of immigrants and the case of Faith Aiworo. The event will end at the monument to Sacco and Vanzetti erected on the Torremaggiore cemetery.
For more information in Italian visit the association's website: www.saccoevanzetti.org
For a full size image of the poster click here.
Braintree to honor victims in case of Sacco and Vanzetti
 (This is an article that appeared on the Boston Globe on April 14, 2010)
BRAINTREE — Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Frederick Parmenter, Alessandro Berardelli: four names forever linked by tragedy 90 years ago.
Yet to most, only Sacco and Vanzetti are immediately recognizable, as the Italian immigrants convicted of an armed robbery and brutal double murder that took place April 15, 1920, in South Braintree Square.
History has not determined definitively whether the two were convicted and executed based on hard evidence or bias. They were foreigners, draft dodgers, and self-proclaimed anarchists as America was still reeling from the horror of World War I. To this day, some people still believe testimony that might have cleared the pair was never introduced at their trial.
Howard Zinn: Anarchism Shouldn't Be a Dirty Word02/08/2010 [DOCUMENTS] - An interview with Ziga Vodovnik, CounterPunch, May 2008.
Howard Zinn: "I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization. In a certain sense the movement towards globalization where capitalists are trying to leap over nation state barriers, creates a kind of opportunity for movement to ignore national barriers, and to bring people together globally, across national lines in opposition to globalization of capital, to create globalization of people, opposed to traditional notion of globalization. In other words to use globalization -- it is nothing wrong with idea of globalization -- in a way that bypasses national boundaries and of course that there is not involved corporate control of the economic decisions that are made about people all over the world."
Saying goodbye to my friend Howard Zinn 01/31/2010 [DOCUMENTS] - By Alice Walker, Globe Correspondent
On hearing the news of his death.
Me: Howie, where did you go?
Howie: What do you mean, where did I go? As soon as I died, I went back to Boston.
I met Howard Zinn in 1961, my first year at Spelman College in Atlanta. He was the tall, rangy, good-looking professor that many of the girls at Spelman swooned over. My African roommate and I got a good look at him every day when he came for his mail in the post office just beneath our dormitory window. He was always in motion, but would stop frequently to talk to the many students and administrators and total strangers that seemed attracted to his energy of non-hesitation to engage. ...
Howard Zinn, anarchist historian dies at 87 01/27/2010 [NEWS] - The last time we interacted directly with Howard Zinn was June 11, 2009 when a small crew of young and old volunteers invaded his personal home to record his views on the case of Sacco and Vanzetti. Among the crew was Bob D'Attilio, "Mr. Sacco & Vanzetti" as Howard used to call him and Fred Clow, our very active retired photographer and member of the Society. Not long before that, Howard Zinn had lectured on the Meaning of Sacco & Vanzetti for the SVCS at the Dante Alighieri Center, where he said that he was surprised to see so many people interested in the subject matter.
Howard Zinn's contribution to the theory of social analisys of U.S. capitalism and working class struggle will definitely outlive him and remain as a tool to understand and change society for a long time.
At the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society, we say raising our fists: "Howard Zinn, presente! Now and forever in the struggle!"
Photo by Fred Clow
To read an article written by the Globe on his death click the title above.
Sacco and Vanzetti Buttons Available Now The Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society printed a limited amount of buttons with the images of Sacco and Vanzetti, with the text "August 23, 1927" on top and "www.saccoandvanzetti.org" at the bottom. They were first released during the march and rally of last August 23, 2009. The size is 2 inches. The solidarity contribution requested is $3 for both buttons. Please include $.88 for shipping for 2 buttons.
Send us a check or money order to "Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society, PO Box 381323, Cambridge, MA 02238-1323" and we will mail them to you. Thank you!
Sacco and Vanzetti - Martyrdom of Workers Speech by Dorothea Manuela from the Boston May Day Committee at the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Rally in the North End, Boston. August 23, 2009
Today we commemorate the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, two immigrant working men whose lives were taken by the state because they were radicals and foreigners. Sacco and Vanzetti are part of a long list of working class martyrs who died in the struggle against corporate greed and for workers rights. That struggle in various forms continues today, and we are animated by the spirit of Sacco and Vanzetti and must dedicate ourselves to a continuation of that struggle.
Memorializing Sacco and Vanzetti in Boston ‘WHO WERE THOSE PEOPLE?’ historian Howard Zinn asked a member of the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society in November 2008. Zinn had just delivered a lecture for the benefit of the Society on ‘The Meaning of Sacco and Vanzetti’ to a crowd of at least 250 people overflowing the Dante Alighieri Italian Cultural Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was taken aback that interest in the case was still alive. ‘I didn’t know what to expect. I thought, how many people are still interested in Sacco and Vanzetti? Maybe seven? Ten? Fifteen? I can’t even—but this place is full!’ Accustomed to smaller crowds composed of all the same familiar radical characters of Greater Boston, I, myself, was surprised at the size of the diverse and intergenerational crowd.
To read the full paper in pdf format click here.
Other Music Dedicated to Sacco and Vanzetti  We are glad to present (space permitting) music dedicated to the memory and the struggle of Sacco and Vanzetti. We encourage musicians to send us their original work regarding this matter. In the case of published and available material for distribution we might include a few representative songs from the album and point the reader to the place where they can obtain the album, if available. The struggle and the ultimate assassination by the state of Sacco and Vanzetti on August 23, 1927 has inspired musicians to write songs about them throughout the world. We know that they continue to inspire musicians today.
Meeting of the Sacco & Vanzetti Commemoration Society The next meeting of the SVCS is scheduled for Tuesday, August 24th, 2010, 6:00 pm. at the Democracy Center, 45 Mt. Auburn, Cambridge, near Harvard Square.
The SVCS meets every second and fourth Tuesday at the Democracy Center.
Meeting dates for the next few months are:
August 24
September 14
September 28
October 12
October 26
November 9
November 23
December 14
December 28
Sacco and Vanzetti Bibliography The primary sources for this bibliography have been the WorldCat database, Anne Folger Decker's extensive bibliography, and the Anarchist Archives Project collection. Other sources have included bibliographies from a number of books and searches on the internet. Source(s) for entries are available upon request.
As a general rule, I have included only the earliest edition of an item in the original language and country in which it was published, as well as the earliest translation in each country in which it was published. If an item was published in the same language in two different countries, e.g., the U.S. and England or Spain and Argentina, I have included both. Where it was not clear where an item first appeared, e.g., an article appearing in two monthly magazines in the same month, I have included both. Reprints have been included only if new material has been added.
To view the full document in pdf format click here.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a painting by Paul Normandia Sacco and Vanzetti were Italian immigrants and anarchists. They were accused of the murder of a shoe factory paymaster and guard and were convicted in 1921 in an atmosphere of antiradical an racist hysteria. In 1927 they were executed in Boston despite widespread belief in their innocence and a huge movement protesting the sentence.
"Never in our full lives could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of men as now we do by accident... That last moment belongs to us. That agony is our triumph." -- Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Original 60x48 inches painting by Paul Normandia for a May First 1999 event organized by Spontaneous Celebrations in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
Welcome to the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society Webpage! The year 2007 marked the 80th anniversary of the execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In 2006, a dedicated group of activists carried out a parade from the Stony Brook Park in Jamaica Plain to the Forest Hills Cemetery where the bodies of Sacco & Vanzetti were cremated after their execution. (To watch a 5-min clip prepared by RAI TV Italy click here.)
In 2007 we were able to formalize a Commemoration Society and carried out three days of events to remember Sacco & Vanzetti (August 23-25). We started with a march through the streets of Boston, a night of theater, music and poetry, and ended with an evening of films.
We will be out on the streets of Boston again on August 23, 2008 and besides marching and demonstrating we hope to establish the foundation for a monument to Sacco and Vanzetti in the North End of Boston.
2007: Historical Marker to Sacco and Vanzetti Rededicated in the North End of Boston 12/02/2007 [NEWS] - Nearly 40 people braved the Boston cold on Saturday, December 1st. 2007, to unveil and rededicate a historical marker for Sacco and Vanzetti in the North End. The plaque was reinstalled at 256 Hanover Street, the place where the Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee functioned from 1925 to 1927. An original plaque had been installed there in 1976, during the bicentennial of the U.S. independence, as part of the Freedom Trail. Early in the 80s, however, the plaque disappeared. The Sacco and Vanzetti Society formed this year to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti decided to correct this situation and now there is a new plaque in place with the original wording and marking as it was in 1976.
To view a Windows Media video (9mb) of the event click here.
Pictured is Jake Carman from the Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement
Sacco and Vanzetti Remembered at the Rose Kennedy Greenway Park in Boston On November 5, 2007 the Rose Kennedy Greenway Park, built on top of the "big dig", was officially opened to the public. The opening ceremony was attended by Governor Deval Patrick and Senator Edward Kennedy. According to the note in The Globe, "The North End park opened on Monday during a ceremony, which took part on the south side of Hanover Street between Cross Street and the Surface Artery.
The Greenway is named after Sen. Kennedy’s mother, who died in 1995 at the age of 104. Rose Kennedy grew up in the North End. One year after her death, the then-Gov. William Weld signed legislation naming the Greenway in her honor."
A timeline of historical events are contained in a series of plaques. One of them refers to the wrongful execution of anarchist labor organizers Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. The plaque reads:
1927
On August 23, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for a 1920 robbery and murder. The men claim to be victims of prejudice against radicals and immigrants. Many prominent intellectuals campaign unsuccessfuly for a retrial. One hundred thousand people visit the bodies at Langone Funeral Home on Hanover Street. In 1977, Governor Michael Dukakis exonerates them proclaiming that the case should be pondered "by all who cherish tolerance, justice and human understanding."
(Photo by Frederick G.S. Clow)
Syracuse University Library Opens New Exhibit on the Execution of Sacco & Vanzetti:
 08/30/2007 [NEWS] - Amidst a seeming wave of domestic terrorism, the 1920 murder of two payroll guards in Braintree, Massachusetts, exploded into what could arguably be described as the trial of the century. Earlier that year, a plot had been exposed in which thirty bombs, disguised as free samples from the Gimbels department store, had been sent to such pillars of American capitalism as J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, as well as to U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Palmer was responsible for the prosecution and deportation of thousands of radicals, including labor organizers, peace advocates, and other “undesirables.” Although the plot had not succeeded for lack of sufficient postage, in the resulting atmosphere of shock, fear, and repression, two working-class Italian Americans with anarchist connections, Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, were not only accused of the crime, but also became scapegoats in the reaction to the supposed threat of the combined forces of labor unrest, new waves of immigration, and the advance of the “red menace” that followed the end of World War I.
This exhibition both commemorates the eightieth anniversary of the execution of the much-mythologized “good shoemaker and a poor fish-peddler,” and celebrates the 1967 installation of the Ben Shahn mural at the heart of the Syracuse University campus. It is not our purpose to determine the guilt or innocence of the defendants in the Sacco-Vanzetti trial. Rather, we wish to highlight not only the creative response to the perceived injustice of the prosecution and sentence, but also the decades of continuing protest over what Katherine Anne Porter described as “the never-ending wrong.”
To see the exhibition on-line click here
City of Boston passes resolution in commemoration of Sacco & Vanzetti  At the initiative of Boston City Councillor Felix Arroyo, and co-sponsored by Stephen Murphy and Chuck Turner, the Council passed a resolution declaring "that the Boston City Council does hereby extend its admiration and congratulations to the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society, and in honor of its many contributions, does hereby declare August 23, 2007, Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Day in the City of Boston". The original, sealed document was presented to the Society during the rally at the Langone Park in the North End of Boston.
Bruce Watson presents new book on Sacco & Vanzetti at the Boston Public Library 08/21/2007 [NEWS] - Coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, the writer Bruce Watson presented his book "Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind", published by the Penguin Group, from New York. Watson is an award-winning journalist whose articles have been published in the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Smithsonian, Reader's Digest, and Yankee magazine. The writer currently lives in Leverett, Massachusetts, although he prided during his talk to "have been born in California".
Reasons of State
A Memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti Erich Mühsam wrote Reasons of State: A Memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti on the first anniversary of their execution. CR Edmonston has sent us his recent English translation of the play and we are happy to have the opportunity to make it available to you.
Erich Mühsam (6 April 1878 in Berlin, Germany – 10 July 1934 Oranienburg Concentration Camp) (also spelled Muehsam or Muhsam) was a German-Jewish anarchist, writer, poet, dramatist and cabaret performer.
Both a prolific poet, dramatist and a Bohemian intellectual, Mühsam emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic. However, Mühsam achieved international prominence during the years of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) for works which satirized Adolf Hitler and condemned Nazism before Hitler came to power in 1933. (Wikipedia).
To read the full play in pdf format please click here.
The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti by Joseph E. Mulligan
August 23, 2007 will mark the 80th anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Their story has been told in books, articles, and songs, but perhaps never so engagingly as in the historical novel, THE PASSION OF SACCO AND VANZETTI – A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND, by Howard Fast (New York: Blue Heron Press, 1953).
Sacco and Vanzetti on YouTube There is a selection of independent videos posted on YouTube in memory of Sacco and Vanzetti in different languages. The fact that people around the world still remembers the injustice of the so-called judicial murder of the two anarchists is evidence that they didn't die in vain.
To go to Sacco and Vanzetti on YouTube click here.
Poetry about Sacco and Vanzetti The trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti moved many, including the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and novelist John Dos Passos, to express their sense of outrage at the injustice done to these men in verse. A number of these poems were collected by Lucia Trent and Ralph Cheyney and published in 1928 as America Arraigned! This slim volume included poems penned either during the seven years the two men spent behind bars or in the months after their "judicial murders." All the poems selected, with the exception of one, are taken from America Arraigned! We've limited our selections to those written either on the day the executions or soon after. And while Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem, "Justice Denied in Massachusetts", also appeared in the Trent and Cheyney collection, the version reproduced here is from The Buck in the Snow and Other Poems, where it first appeared in book form. To see our selection of poems click here.
Community Church of Boston Sacco-Vanzetti Memorial and Award Since 1976 The Community Church of Boston is proud to have one of three existing castings of the Sacco-Vanzetti memorial bas relief by noted sculptor Gutzon Borglum, creator of the Mount Rushmore presidential sculpture in South Dakota. The sculpture is on display in Lothrop Auditorium on the second floor of the Community Church Center at 565 Boylston Street in Copley Square, Boston. To read the story behind this sculpture written by Carol Adams and Rev. David Carl Olson click on the title of this article.
The Monument to Sacco and Vanzetti that Never Saw the Streets of Boston Boston, July 15, 2007. In 1997 (exactly August 23) a 10-years younger Thomas Menino received as Mayor of Boston a relief of Sacco and Vanzetti sculpted by the famous author of the Mt. Rushmore National Memorial depicting the first 150 years of independent history of the U.S. with the likeness of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. The artist's name was (John) Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum. The massive project in Mt. Rushmore sharply contrasts with the 7-foot size of the Sacco and Vanzetti relief that reads:
"What I wish more than all in this last hour of agony is that our case and our fate may be understood in their real being and serve as a tremendous lesson to the forces of freedom, that our suffering and death will not have been in vain."
What happened to that monument?
The strange case of the missing Sacco & Vanzetti plaque in the North End of Boston Until sometime in the 1980s, a plaque to the right of the entrance to 256 Hanover Street in Boston's North End indicated the former site of the offices of the Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee. The plaque was one of a number of historical markers put up by the City of Boston in 1976 and was located along the Freedom Trail.
This was the text of the plaque:
Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee In may 1920, two Italian immigrants were arrested for the murder of two payroll guards in South Braintree. A group of friends and fellow anarchists organized a defense committee for the accused men, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. For the next seven years the committee struggled to free the two, whose cause became a passionate controversy the world over. In 1925, the committee moved to upstairs rooms at 256 Hanover Street, where the drama intensified. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in 1927, but theirs is "the case that will not die."
Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society Mission MISSION
The Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society exists to preserve the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti's struggle to radically change society. We want to educate our neighbors about Massachusetts' radical history, and draw connections between the struggles of Sacco and Vanzetti and similar struggles today. We stand against the death penalty and political persecution as well as the persecution and scapegoating of immigrants.
Sacco and Vanzetti by Howard Zinn Fifty years after the executions of Italian immigrants Sacco and Vanzetti, Governor Dukakis of Massachusetts set up a panel to judge the fairness of the trial, and the conclusion was that the two men had not received a fair trial. This aroused a minor storm in Boston.
One letter, signed John M. Cabot, U.S. Ambassador Retired, declared his “great indignation” and pointed out that Governor Fuller’s affirmation of the death sentence was made after a special review by “three of Massachusetts’ most distinguished and respected citizens—President Lowell of Harvard, President Stratton of MIT and retired Judge Grant.”
The mexican newspaper La Jornada printed an Spanish translation of this article on August 23, 2007. On the same article they announced that Howard Zinn's book, "A Power Government Cannot Suppress" will be published in Spanish in Mexico by La Jornada in the near future.
Para ver la traduccion de este articulo publicado por La Jornada pinchar aqui.
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