Speakers at SDS Gathering in Sanders Urge an End to Racism at University

More than 700 people rallied in Sanders Theatre last night to hear worker, student and faculty speakers call for an end to racism at Harvard.

"We're flighting a revolution here, and we must shed the economic blood of Harvard," said Lafayette Keaton '73, member of OBU. He called for a united campaign of blacks and whites. "Black people will not be totally liberated until white people are liberated too," he said.

The rally centered mainly around the painters' helper issue. John Carol and Sonny Gordon, two Harvard painters, claimed that the painters' helpers category had been set up to hire black workers at lower wages.

Gordon said that one white painter looking for a job had been told that there were no openings for helpers. Two weeks later, he said, two more black helpers were hired. "Harvard is hiring blacks for cheap labor," Gordon said.

Both he and Carol said that the helpers do the same work as the painters. "Any painter knows another painter," Carol said. "The helpers who are supposed to be assisting the painters are painting the same houses."

Gordon, a black journeyman painter, said that he had come to Harvard as a qualified painter and had been hired as a helper. "I spent eight hours a day doing exactly the same work as the painters," he said.

"Question me and I will tell you exactly what's going on," he said. "The only thing Harvard can do is fire me."

At one point in his speech, Gordon received a standing ovation. "I'm a West Indian by birth," he said, "but I'm an American citizen. I want to help you change this country so that my son will live in a better America.

Gordon's wife, Doreen, said that she had applied for a job as a secretary at Harvard in 1965. "I graduated from a certified secretarial school and spent two years in college," she said. "When I applied for a job, they interviewed me twice, then offered me a light dusting job."

Donald C. Mikulecky, lecturer on Biophysics at the Medical School, said that the Faculty should be more concerned with the painters' helpers issue. "One who talks about Rights and Responsiblities ought to be worried about the responsibilities he has neglected," he said.

"Faculty members are prone to react," he said. "When they pass painters in the hall, they treat them as if they were part of the apparatus rather than people."

The rally began with a performance of the Radical Arts Troop satirizing the disciplinary procedures of the Administration.

Outside the theatre, NAC members gathered signatures on a petition supporting the OBU demands and calling for no punishment for any of the students involved in recent demonstrations. At 7:30 p. m. over 1000 people had signed the petition.