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NEWSSacco and Vanzetti Remembered in Boston, Sunday, August 22, 2010PRESS RELEASE / PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
On Sunday, August 22nd, in Boston, the 83rd anniversary of the execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti will be remembered. They were two Italian immigrants and committed anarchists whose trial is regarded as one of the great miscarriages of justice in American history. Calling attention to the continued repression of immigrants and radicals, the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society (SVCS) invites all to attend and participate in the fifth annual march and rally.
We will begin by gathering in Copley Square at 2PM, followed by a march to the North End at 3PM, and conclude with a rally at 4PM at the Paul Revere Mall at 416 Hanover Street featuring a number of speakers, including Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, environmental activist Klare Allen, Laila Murad from the Tarek Mehanna Defense Committee, Pasqualino Colombaro, labor activist, Dorotea Manuela from the Boston May Day Committee and Jake Carman, from the Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement.
For five years, the SVCS has sought to bring public attention to the wrongful execution of the two Italian immigrant workers and radicals in 1927. We invoke their tragedy and our local history not just to remember Sacco and Vanzetti, but also to demonstrate how little has changed in the 83 years following their execution. Nationalist fear mongering and the repression of dissidents are as prevalent today as it was during the Red Scare in the early 20th century. The way in which immigrants workers are rounded up, detained and deported today under the pretext of a War on Terror, a War on Drugs or securing our borders, is eerily similar to the Palmer Raids targeting immigrants in the 1920s. And while the overwhelming majority of developed nations have abolished the death penalty, the retention of capital punishment in the United States keeps the U.S. in disgracefully bad company only with countries notorious for their human rights abuses.
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.
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Contact: Sergio Reyes, 617-290-5614
Email: info[@]saccoandvanzetti.org
Web: www.saccoandvanzetti.org
Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society
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