3000 Jam Donnelly For 'Stay-Out' Rally

Last night's Stay-Out rally was more than a rally. It was a camp meeting, church sermon, political convention, vaudeville act, and song festival all rolled into the happiest, saddest, funniest, most moving program ever to rock Donnelly Auditorium.

Over 3000 people--Negro and white--jammed the theatre, nearly filling all three tiers of seats and leaving many standing. And they stayed, entranced, throughout the four-hour program, shouting their approval with "yeah, man," and "amen."

The evening really got under way when 200 youthful members of Freedom Choirs marched down the theatre aisles, singing "March in to Boston," while the audience clapped in rhythm, rose, and finally joined in.

But it was comedian Dick Gregory, who flew to Boston last night from Arkansas, where he had earlier in the day been sentenced and fined for civil rights participation, who brought emotion to a fever pitch. Gregory strode into the auditorium, suitcase in hand, an hour and and a half after the rally began.

The Negro comedian alternated between humor and harangue. "1773 was the Boston teaparty, and now in 1964 we're going to have an absentee party," he began.

Then he became deeply serious. "I've been waiting for my kid to grow up so that I can bring her to Boston and show her a statue of the first black man to die in the Revolution." His voice broke. "But I don't know whether I want to anymore," he continued, and he wiped his eyes.

Throughout, Gregory kept echoing a single refrain directed both at Negroes and whites: "Better wake up and see what's happening."

"The Negro controls the fate and destiny of this country, but he doesn't know it yet," Gregory said. "The Southern Negro is going to free himself and then free the northern Negro, and then together we'll free the American white man."

"We don't want you to love as no more," Gregory said, "just respect us."

Meanwhile, organizers of the boycott put in a long day making final preparations. More than 1000 persons, including a number of Harvard undergraduates and Divinity School faculty, have volunteered to teach at some 23 "Freedom Schools."

The schools will offer a day-long course on employment, education and Negro history. According to boycott leader James P. Breeden, attendance at the schools is necessary to make the protest against to facte segregation valid.