SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT DEBUTS SACCO VANZETTI EXHIBIT
IN JOHN ADAMS COURTOUSE
An evening reception sponsored by the Supreme Judicial Court and the Supreme Judicial Court Historical Society was held on Thursday, October 25 at the John Adams Courthouse to mark the opening of a new exhibit “The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti: Justice on Trial.” The exhibit focuses on the famous case of Nicolo Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, poor Italian immigrants and committed anarchists who were convicted of robbery and murder in a trial that occurred in the wake of World War I and the Red Scare of 1919-1920.
Narrative posters and photographs lead visitors through the history and significance of the case, and a computer terminal links to a web site where trial transcripts and letters written by the two men may be read. Visitors may also listen to popular folk songs written about the case on an antique radio and read Edna St. Vincent Millet’s poem, “Justice Denied in Massachusetts,” as well as other documents.
Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall said, “I hope that this exhibition will remind all of us that unpopular defendants, as all others, demand from judges and from prosecutors alike, vigilance that judicial proceedings not be infected by passion or prejudice, all to the end that we may be, in the words of the Massachusetts Constitution, a government of laws and not of men.”
Following the reception, guests viewed the 2006 documentary film, “Sacco and Vanzetti,” directed by Peter Miller.
View photos from the reception
View photos from the school visit
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