Fund Drive Here Will Aid Negro Voting Registration

A fund-raising drive for Negro voter registration in the South will begin at the University this Wednesday. Sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Liberal Coalition, the Young Democrats, and the Congregational-Presbyterian Student Fellowship, the drive is the first project undertaken by the Civil Rights Coordinating Committee, formed at the University last month.

Richard J. Rothstein '63, informal chairman of the co-ordinating committee, said the group will sell one-dollar buttons, showing a white hand clasping a dark hand, in the House dining halls and the Freshman Union.

The money will go to the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to support its voter registration drive in McComb, Miss.

There are already 18 SNCC field workers in McComb. But the group is so low on funds that the workers receive only apiece each week and may have to quit entirely.

Drive's Purpose

According to Rothstein, the major task of the drive is to teach the Mississippi Constitution to prospective Negro voters. The state has kept the number of Negroes registered at 2.4 per cent of those eligible primarily by requiring that they be able to interpret any passage of the constitution.

An attempt by the Coordinating Committee to get support from the Harvard Young Republicans for the fund-raising failed last week when the executive board of the HYRC turned down the bid in a 7-5 vote.

Bruce K. Chapman '62, editor of Advance Magazine, then started to organize the Republican Advance for Equal Opportunity, which would add an un-official Republican voice to the Coordinating Committee. The Advance organization will have its first meeting later this week. The Young Americans for Freedom is also considering joining the Civil Rights Committee.