"The Italian Americans" on WGBH

WGBH broadcast "The Italian Americans" last night. Recalling the effect of the Sacco-Vanzetti case on the Italian immigrant community, historians (including Bruce Watson) and other sources described their trial as an "appalling" miscarriage of justice overseen by a bigoted judge before a prejudiced jury. "The trial was all about anarchists," one historian said, "and Italian anarchists made it so much the better." After Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in 1927, "hundreds of thousands attended a funeral march" in Boston. Up until the 1960s, one source recalled, "every Italian family heard the story at the dinner table... if you stepped out line this is what they would do to you." In 1924 Calvin Coolidge signed a law setting a quota for Italian immigrants. Coolidge said, "It's clear that certain groups of people will not mix or blend."...It seems to me that similar things are being said today about other groups.
Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind