Answer:
On August 23, 1927, two Italian anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were executed in Boston, Massachusetts, in the electric chair. The charge was that they had committed 7 years earlier an armed robbery with fatalities in a shoe factory in South Braintree and another in South Brigdwater.
Shortly after the events, Sacco and Vanzetti are arrested. At the time of their arrest they were carrying a gun they had never used.
The U.S. authorities, in the midst of hysteria against the Russian Revolution and carrying out mass deportations of foreign immigrants accused of being "Reds," begin a persecution against workers' organizations. Sacco and Vanzetti become perfect scapegoats to "teach a lesson" to the "Reds" in the USA.
The robbery was committed by a mafia gang of Italian nationality headed by some Mike Boda, Mancini and Morelli.
Despite the fact that the authorities knew about the existence of the mafia gang and that they knew perfectly well that they had committed the robbery and the crime, they continued with the process to Sacco and Vanzetti. The court was composed of Judge Webster Thayer and Prosecutor Kartzmann. Both were known racists and did not hesitate to show their most anti-immigration and anti-anarchist faces. Among the jury were notorious members of the Ku Klux Klan. In addition, dozens of witnesses were paid to say that Sacco and Vanzetti had been recognized in the assault on the shoe factory. The defense's chances were nil. The sentence was final: death penalty for the two Italian anarchists.
But the trial was successfully reopened. And a lot of evidence came to light that gave the innocence to Sacco and Vanzetti. Among them, the following:
The real killers' own confession. Among them Celestino Madeiros, who was also executed on the same day as Sacco and Vanzetti.
The confession of many witnesses who had been bought to accuse Sacco and Vanzetti.
To this was added the fact that on the day of the events Sacco and Vanzetti were at their places of work, with a number of witnesses.
But nothing was possible. Sacco and Vanzetti's fate was sealed. On 23 August 1927 they were taken to the electric chair and executed.
This was the culmination of a history of crimes by the American State against anarchism. Let us not forget that in 1886, on May 1st, it ended with the arrests of numerous anarchists and the execution of five of them for an attack they had not committed. That after the murder of William McKinley by the alleged anarchist Leon Czolgozs in 1901, led to the decree of Anti-Anarchist Laws in the U.S. that provoked the persecution of libertarian organizations. And that after the triumph of the Russian Revolution the persecution against the American left was intense, culminating in the assassination of Sacco and Vanzetti, and the dismantling of the American revolutionary workers movement which had been very powerful up to that point.
In 1977 the governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis, declared the innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti.
The growth of the kkk was an opportunistic consequence of the growth of social anti-immigrant sentiment, xenophobia and racism that had subsequent consequences with the persecution of "communists".
