Menino, the mayor who welcomed Sacco and Vanzetti
Richard Kreitner, Boston Globe, November 23, 2014
Since his death last month, longtime Mayor Thomas M. Menino has been memorialized for any number of qualities: his genuine comfort among constituents; his firm control of City Hall; his enthusiasm for the problem-solving side of the job. He’s also seen as a bridge-builder, one who helped to smooth over some of Boston’s old divisions.
But there is one illuminating episode that has gone all but unmentioned in the various tributes to Menino. In 1997, the city’s first Italian-American mayor officially accepted on behalf of the city a sculpture of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Italian immigrant anarchists executed 70 years earlier after a trial that many have long held was a travesty of American justice.
