May 31
![](http://www.workdayminnesota.org/upload/editor/Image/days%20in%20history/0531sacco_vanzetti.jpg)
May 31, 1921 - The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti began in Dedham, Massachusetts. The anti-worker, anti-immigrant tone of the proceedings was set in Judge Webster Thayer’s opening remarks. Attorney Felix Frankfurter, an observer of the proceedings and later a U.S. Supreme Court justice, said the court engaged in “systematic exploitation of the defendants’ alien blood, their imperfect knowledge of English, their unpopular social views and their opposition to the war . . .”
For more on the Sacco and Vanzetti case and the activism it inspired, go to
http://www.msu.edu/course/mc/112/1920s/Sacco-Vanzetti/sacvan.htm and
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/yates211206.htmlRose Will Monroe, popularly known as Rosie the Riveter, dies in Clarksville, Ind. During WWII she helped bring women into the labor force - 1997
![](http://www.unionist.com/biglabor/images/uploads/05_31-Rosie-Riveter.jpg)