SDS to Demonstrate Against Assembly Ban

Harvard-Radcliffe SDS agreed last night to participate in an illegal demonstration against the temporary ban on assemblies in Cambridge. The demonstration, which is sponsored by the New England Regional SDS, will start at 4 p.m. today at Cambridge City Hall.

SDS members also voted approval of a march after the meeting to the CRIMSON building at 14 Plympton Street to protest a "racial slur" which appeared in Tuesday's paper.

In addition to the temporary ban imposed after last Wednesday's disturbances, Cambridge city councilman Walter Sullivan has said he will introduce a resolution at a City Council meeting on April 27 that would deny parade and assembly permits to radical groups with histories of radical activity.

"We are fighting the proposed ban against the suppression of radical groups and progressive workers," said Michael Macy '71, a member of H-R-SDS. He added that "provocateurs and trashers will be isolated" to prevent a disturbance similar to last Wednesday.

A spokesman for the Cambridge Police said that "If they are there, we will be there," The police have not given the demonstrators a permit for the rally.

Following the meeting, about 50 SDS members marched to the CRIMSON building to protest a caption on page three of yesterday's CRIMSON.

The article on that page was about the cult of Scientology and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. A photograph accompanying the articles showed a black man unloading crates from a truck. The caption to the photo read, "Scientology can change intelligence upward at the rate of one point per hour,' L. R. Hubbard."

The demonstrators marched into the CRIMSON newsroom chanting "Workers Yes, Bosses No-Racist Slurs Have Got to Go" and gave CRIMSON president David N. Hollander '71 a letter protesting the caption.

Hollander agreed that the caption was racist and said the CRIMSON was chagrined at its appearance and deeply apologetic to all its readers. He said the editor who prepared the caption had not seen the photograph.

Following is the text of the SDS letter. A beginning paragraph explaining the incident has been deleted.

This [the picture and caption] is an intolerable racist slur on black people, very reminiscent of the lies the "sociologist" Jensen tries to spread about working people in general, and black working people in particular. Spreading such lies and slurs is invaluable to the people who own and run this country, for whom it is a life-and-death matter to keep black and white people from uniting and fighting.

As opposed to Jensen, those responsible for printing this picture, and others, we feel that black people have been extremely intelligent in fighting back against the special oppressions heaped on them by the ruling class of this country, and in giving leadership to the daily struggles of working people, such as the recent postal strike.

But various ruling class organs, from the New York Times to the Harvard Educational Review, push this crap about the "inferior intelligence" of black people, and perform a tremendous service for those who wish to keep white people, especially working people, from following the leadership of blacks.

Now the CRIMSON has joined the fold, without even taking the trouble to erect the false front of sociological mumbo-jumbo as the Times and the Ed Review are always careful to do.

How can this be explained? As a "harmless" example of the kind of infantile, insolent, cutesy-ness people associate with the Crimson? We think not.