The Left Kicks Off Its Spring Offensive: Panthers Speak in Lawrence Hall As Free University's Life Begins

The Free University moved into Lawrence Hall yesterday and celebrated its first day of existence with a free film showing and a teach-in on the Black Panther Party by members of the Boston Panthers.

The group hopes to use the building-which is presently unused and is slated to be torn down to make way for the new Science Center-"to provide people with something better to do than to go to classes," Walter Jaros, a graduate student and one of the group's organizers, said yesterday.

The classroom and office building presently houses only a Building and Grounds workshop and one office assigned to David Holmstrom, a graduate student who has been active in planning the Free University.

Holmstrom said he had not asked the University for permission to use the building. "We don't want to hold the building or take the land," he said. "We just want to use it."

Day Care

The group's plans include a day-care center for Cambridge children and courses which will explore "possible socialist alternatives" to present social institutions.

About 30 members of the group-which includes some undergraduate members of the New College Group-entered the building yesterday morning. Students set up silk screening facilities and printed dozens of posters reading, "This building condemned under Article 2, People's Code: all buildings used for oppression are to be returned to their rightful owners, the people." Groups swept halls and covered exposed electrical wires with tape.

At about 4 p.m., members of the November Action Coalition (NAC), which had scheduled an Emerson Hall teach-in on the Black Panthers, led about 150 people attending the teach-in from Emerson 210 to Lawrence Hall.

The group watched two films by Boston Newsreel on the Panthers and then heard speeches by Orlando Vaughan and Audrea Jones, members of the Boston Black Panthers.

Vaughan told students attending the teach-in to support a NAC proposal to give meal rebates to the Panthers by coming to the NAC-sponsored demonstration at University Hall tomorrow.

"But we're not going to let you get away with just participating in the rebate program and just giving up a meal a week and thinking that black people are going to smile on you and say "right on," he added. "Sooner or later you're going to have to put your life on the line."

Miss Jones urged students to go to New Haven and use "any means necessary" to stop the upcoming trial in which Panther National Chairman Bobby Seale and nine New Haven Panthers face possible death sentences on charges of murder.

"Huey P. Newton and Bobby Sealeare your leaders." she said. "The position we're in now is that there's going to be no more riding on the fence."

About 50 people attended an "organizational meeting" of the Free University last night. The meeting decided that persons using drugs in Lawrence Hall would be asked to leave. and broke up into committees to discuss scheduling problems and recruit clean-up crews. After the meeting, members of a "film affinity group" showed films.

"We hope that anyone who wants to give a course will come and do so," Holmstrom said yesterday.

Robert Tonis, chief of the University Police, said last night that the police have no plans as yet to evict the students in Lawrence Hall. "I assume they have permission to be there," he said.

Dean May could not be reached for comment.