Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian-born anarchists who arrived in the US in 1908. Sacco was a shoe-maker and Vanzetti, a fish seller. A payroll was held up in Braintree, Massachusetts on April 15, 1920, where the paymaster and security guard were killed. Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested for the action. Multiple trials and appeals later, they were found guilty and executed by electric chair on August 23, 1927. Today there is significant evidence that they did not commit the crime, and few contest that their trial was grossly unjust. During the trial they did not shy away from their anarchist beliefs or their commitment to revolutionary violence.
Printed at the worker-owned Stumptown Printers, Portland, OR.
This is #65 in the Celebrate People’s History Poster Series.
Josh MacPhee is a designer, artist, and archivist. He is a founding member of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, the author of An Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels, and co-editor of Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics and Culture. He co-founded and helps run Interference Archive, a public collection of cultural materials produced by social movements.
