Volunteers Push Negro Registration; Offer Transportation to Boston Polls

Student volunteers working under the aegis of the Northern Student Movement (NSM) will follow up their campaign to register voters in Boston's heavily Negro districts by distributing educational literature the weekend before Election Day, November 6.

The local collegians, including a number from the University, will also provide transportation to and from the polls and babysitting services on Election Day.

Canvassers in the voter registration drive last week received such enthusiastic response using the "door-to-door" technique that the distribution of literature will be done the same way, Jean Miller, head of the Wellesley civil rights group, said last night.

The literature, published by the League of Women Voters, will be strictly non-partisan, containing brief biographies and reviews of the candidates positions on major issues.

At a meeting of NSM Sunday, students who had participated in the registration campaign called the experience "extraordinarily valuable" in learning first-hand some of the problems of urban slum areas, Miss Miller said. Many students also voiced surprise that the people they contacted were so appreciative of being approached personally to register.

Although final figures are not yet available, 67 voters registered at the Huntington Avenue YMCA in the South End Tuesday night. Mel King, director of South End House, said that in the past new registrants averaged about 60 for a whole week prior to an election.

King added that Friday night, in the midst of a driving rain, a continuous stream of people entered the YMCA to register for the November election.

The Northern Student Movement will meet in New Haven the weekend of Oct. 19-21 to plan its program for the coming year. A little more than a year old, NSM is a student group designed to combat racial discrimination in the North.