On August 23, 1927, the state of Massachustetts executed Italian immigrants and anarchists Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for the alleged robbery-murder of a shoe factory paymaster and a security guard. Their deaths concluded one of the most scandalous and sensationalized legal battles in U.S. history. Sacco’s last words were “Long live anarchy.” Sacco’s and Vanzetti’s execution “elicited mass-protests in New York, London, Amsterdam and Tokyo, worker walk-outs across South America, and riots in Paris, Geneva, Germany and Johannesburg” and sparked numerous ideological debates all over the world. As with many high-profile events, numerous artists and poets have memorialized Sacco and Vanzetti’s story.
These poems are some examples of writers’ responses to the event.
- Allen Ginsberg, in what may be his second-most-famous poem, “America,” names the two men.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Justice Denied in Massachusetts” responds emotionally to their deaths. These sites discuss her poem in relation to the historical event.
- “Climbing Milestone Mountain, August 22, 1937” by Kenneth Rexroth is another elegy.
- The voice of William Carlos Williams’ poem “Impromptu: The Suckers” delivers especially scathing criticism of those who convicted the two.
Eleventh Stack 