August 23, 1927 Sacco and Vanzetti Executed

On August 23, 1927, Massachusetts executed Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti at Charlestown State Prison for a 1920 payroll robbery and double murder in South Braintree. Many believed their anarchist beliefs and immigrant status made them targets rather than evidence. Their trial unfolded during the Red Scare, with a biased judge and questionable evidence stacked against them. Their deaths sparked worldwide protests and remain one of history's most controversial cases — and there's much more to uncover.

Key Takeaways

• Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian anarchist immigrants, were executed on August 23, 1927, at Charlestown State Prison in Massachusetts.
• Both men were convicted of the 1920 South Braintree payroll robbery and murders of Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli.
• Celestino Medeiros, who confessed to the crimes in 1925, was executed the same night before Sacco and Vanzetti.
• Governor Alvan T. Fuller refused to grant clemency after a three-man commission upheld the controversial guilty verdict.
• Global protests erupted following the executions, including bombings, workers' strikes, and a Boston funeral procession drawing over 200,000 mourners.

Who Were Sacco and Vanzetti?

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants and anarchists whose 1927 execution sparked one of the most controversial legal cases in American history. Both men arrived in the United States in the early 1900s, bringing with them strong political convictions that made them targets during America's Red Scare era.

As political radicals, they openly opposed capitalism and government authority, which immediately drew suspicion from law enforcement. Sacco worked as a shoe factory edge trimmer, while Vanzetti sold fish as a street peddler. Neither had a prior criminal record.

When authorities arrested them in May 1920 for a deadly payroll robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, their anarchist beliefs and immigrant status shaped public perception of their guilt long before any jury reached a verdict. Much like the 2018 acquittal of Gerald Stanley in the killing of Colten Boushie, their case prompted widespread public debate about systemic racism in legal proceedings and calls for reform of jury selection practices.

The 1920 South Braintree Robbery and Double Murder

On April 15, 1920, armed robbers ambushed a payroll delivery at the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, killing payroll clerk Frederick Parmenter and security guard Alessandro Berardelli before fleeing with over $15,000 in cash. The brazen payroll heist shocked the region and triggered an immediate manhunt.

Authorities linked the crime to a broader series of violent robberies tied to Italian anarchist networks. When police arrested Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti just three weeks later, both men were carrying firearms and offered evasive answers under questioning.

However, witness inconsistencies plagued the investigation from the start. Eyewitness accounts contradicted each other, physical evidence remained questionable, and the rushed connection between the men and the crime raised serious doubts that would haunt the case for years.

How Anti-Immigrant Bias and Red Scare Panic Shaped the Verdict

The weak evidence against Sacco and Vanzetti didn't exist in a vacuum — it landed in a courtroom already poisoned by fear and prejudice. You have to understand the climate: it's 1921, the Red Scare is raging, and nativist propaganda is fueling widespread immigrant scapegoating across America. Italian anarchists weren't just unpopular — they were terrifying to many Americans.

Judge Webster Thayer openly expressed contempt for foreigners and anarchists outside the courtroom. Jurors absorbed that same cultural hostility. Anti-Italianism and anti-radical sentiment didn't just hover over the trial — they drove it. The Palmer Raids had already normalized treating immigrants as threats. Sacco and Vanzetti's political beliefs became their real crime. Howard Zinn later recognized the case as a stark symbol of unequal justice for the poor and foreign-born. This pattern of legislating identity and belonging to marginalize entire groups was not unique to America — in Canada, the Indian Act of 1876 was simultaneously institutionalizing federal control over Indigenous peoples by legally defining who counted as Indian and stripping rights based on ancestry, gender, and political compliance.

Seven Years of Sacco and Vanzetti Appeals That Changed Nothing

Despite being convicted in 1921, Sacco and Vanzetti wouldn't face execution for another seven years — a prolonged legal battle that raised hopes, attracted global attention, and ultimately changed nothing.

What followed conviction was pure legal stagnation. Judge Webster Thayer denied every motion for a new trial, including one filed after Celestino Medeiros confessed to the Braintree crimes in 1925.

Appellate rules blocked the Supreme Judicial Court from reviewing evidence strength, turning the process into little more than appeals theater.

Governor Alvan T. Fuller appointed a three-man commission that interviewed judges, lawyers, and witnesses before quietly upholding the verdict.

Scheduled originally for April 1927, public outcry pushed the execution to August 23. Seven years of legal maneuvering produced nothing but delay.

The Governor's Refusal and the Night of the Executions

When every appeal collapsed and the commission quietly upheld the verdict, only one man had the power to stop the executions — and he chose not to use it. Governor Fuller's rationale was simple: the commission had reviewed the case, and he trusted its findings. No pardon would come.

On August 23, 1927, just after midnight, execution protocol moved swiftly at Charlestown State Prison. Celestino Madeiros died first.

Then Nicola Sacco walked to the electric chair, his body weakened from a hunger strike — guards applied higher voltage to compensate for his depleted salt and water levels. Bartolomeo Vanzetti followed, still proclaiming his innocence.

Both men never wavered. By dawn, their bodies were cremated at Forest Hills Cemetery, their ashes eventually returned to Italy. The executions, like the execution of Thomas Scott decades earlier in Canada, became a political turning point that inflamed public opinion and hardened opposition along deeply divided ideological lines.

How Sacco and Vanzetti's Executions Shook the World

Before dawn had even broken on August 23, 1927, news of the executions spread across the globe like a shockwave. Global protests erupted in cities from Paris to Buenos Aires, where crowds took to the streets in outrage. Bombs detonated in New York and Philadelphia. Workers staged strikes across Europe and Latin America.

You couldn't escape the case's cultural reach either. Artistic responses poured in from writers, painters, and poets who saw Sacco and Vanzetti as martyrs of an unjust system. Over 200,000 people joined the August 28 funeral procession through Boston's North End.

The executions permanently branded America's justice system as weaponized against the poor, foreign-born, and politically radical — a verdict history hasn't overturned.