Local Professors Join F.D.P.'s Drive

A member of the Harvard Law School faculty and a Harvard research fellow have initiated a letter circulating among college faculty members in the Boston area to urge support for Mississippi's Freedom Democratic Party in its attempt to block the seating of five Congressmen-elect from Mississippi.

The letter written by Hayes Lamont, a research fellow in biology, and signed by Mark De Wolfe Howe, '28, professor of Law, urges its recipients to put pressure on their Congressmen and on the Johnson administration to consider the Notice of Challenge filed with the House of Representatives by members of the FDP.

Howard Zinn, associate professor of Government at B.U., who also signed the letter, said that the huge mandate given Johnson in the recent election should "make it clear that he can proceed without fear" in pushing the Civil Rights movement. There is a wide-spread apprehension that Johnson will ignore the Challenge in an effort to preserve peace in the Congressional ranks.

The letter, written by Hayes Lamont, ways in which pressure might be effectively applied. Those interested might form ad hoc committees to push the movement. In addition the letter urged that advertising space be purchased in newspapers and that time be bought on local television stations to publicize the matter.

Neither Lamont nor Zinn has as yet put into action any of these recommendations. Zinn, who has been active in support of SNCC in the past, did state that he was trying to rally support of the movement among the faculty of B.U.

Dorothy Zeliner, New England co-ordinator for the Student's Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee, termed the letter part of a growing movement contesting the constitutionality of last fall's Congressional elections in Mississippi in which many Negroes were unable to vote.

SNCC officers have asked Harvard-Radcliffe students to urge their perents to make their views on the issue clear in letters to their Representatives. If the "Fairness Resolution" manages to make its way to the House floor through the Subcommittee on Elections and Privileges, which is doubtful, the House will have to decide to either seat the contestees or declare the election unconstitutional and call for another vote.

Lamont's letter cited voter registration requirements which it claimed required Negroes to pass highly personal and exceedingly difficult registration tests. The FDP, after falling to gain a place for its candidates on the bailot, conducted a parallel vote which its candidates won by an overwhelming majority.