The Trial

To the Editors of The Crimson:

On November 21 of last year 19 Harvard alumni and other antiapartheid activists were arrested while staging a peaceful protest outside a Harvard University fundraising dinner. They were protesting Harvard's refusal to divest its $300 million invested in companies doing business in South Africa. Seven of these individuals will go on trial today in Middlesex District Court.

I support and commend the "Harvard 7" and their fellow activists for their efforts in pressuring Harvard to divest its apartheidconnected holdings. The movement for change in South Africa is mounting daily. The South African government talks of reform, but has viciously repressed the growing movement for full economic and political rights. An estimated 24,000 South Africans are in detention--40 percent of them children. As President Reagan's special advisory committee on South Africa concluded earlier this year, "Negotiations between Blacks and whites in South Africa appear unlikely until a further combination of internal and external pressures raises the financial and human costs of maintaining apartheid with its present white power monopoly."

Harvard must take a morally responsible position and divest. The recent much-welcomed divestment by Brandeis clearly demonstrates institutional responsiveness to community pressure. Moral hypocrisy provideds a suprisingly vulnerable foundation for policy-making.

I will be at today's 9 a.m. trial to show my support, and I urge all opponents of apartheid to join me. Saundra Graham   State Representative