Afro Calls For Strike Against Vietnam War

The Harvard-Radcliffe Association of African and Afro-American Students yesterday called for a one-day student strike on April 26.

"The strike is intended as a protest against the war and its effect on black society," Elvin Montgomery '68, vice president of the AAAAS, said yester-day.

The strike will be more than a boycott of classes, Montgomery said. Plans also include protest actions such as speakers or teach-ins.

A large majority of the AAAAS voted for the strike, according to Montgomery. The vote yesterday was in response to a motion by Suzanne M. Lynn '71.

"All that was decided was to sponsor the strike," Montgomery said. "This doesn't necessarily mean that every member of Afro will strike."

This kind of strike was first suggested at the Chicago convention of the Black Students Anti-Draft Anti-War Union. "It is not solely a Harvard project," Montgomery said. Harvard AAAAS is working directly with Wellesley and Northeastern, and other schools across the country are also involved.

The AAAAS strike is similar to the proposal for a national student strike that was rejected by SDS last weekend, at their Regional Conference held at Harvard. The strike would have been in protest of "imperialism and racism."

"It's only within the last year that the anti-war rhetoric has turned into programs for action," Charles J. Hamilton Jr. '69 said yesterday.

The first collective action against the war was a demonstration held last May in Harvard Yard, Hamilton said. Approximately 300 black students from the New England area filled the Yard, marching under the slogan "We'll fight in Mississippi, but not in Vietnam."

Conrad J. Lynn, one of the official SNCC attorneys and a counselor for draft resistance in Harlem, voiced similar feelings Friday, speaking at Harvard on "Vietnam and the Black Man." Hamilton called the proposed strike "the first real concerted effort of black students across the country to voice their opposition to the war."