PBH Teachers in South Will Not Demonstrate

Students from PBH who will be teaching at Miles College in Birmingham, Ala., this summer have agreed not to participate in civil rights demonstrations, Jon W. Clifton '63, director of the program, said yesterday.

They have also been discouraged from walking on the Birmingham streets in integrated groups, he added.

Dean Munro, who will also be teaching at Miles College, confirmed the no-demonstration decision and stated that this arrangement was agreeable both to the people at Miles College and the people going down. "This project is a demonstration on the educational side, not on the political side," he explained. "The project won't be a success if there is any violence."

"Birmingham is not a gentle town," Clifton said. "It is still overly sensitive and is by no means an integrated cty. We just do not want to expose the kids we are teaching to any kind of violence. Anyway we're not going to have the time."

While the volunteers are in Birmingham, they will not have the same freedoms as they would have if they were still in Cambridge. In an effort to avoid any sort of provocation, the students have been asked to refrain from walking in integrated groups, even though all the Harvard students will be living together at Miles College. Clifton said he hopes that living together will not prove inflammatory.

The chief aims of the program will be the education of groups of Negro youngsters in community centers around the Birmingham area and the establishment of an "open house" at Miles College where the volunteers can communicate with the local college students in an informal atmosphere.

A great deal of the program is built around the "open house" where the cultural exchange aspect of the program will be emphasized. Three college-level non-credit seminars have been established and will be taught by Harvard students: Juvenile Delinquency; Changing Attitudes Toward Liberty in America; Communication through the Novel.

PBH is still accepting applications for volunteers to teach on the high school level although anyone joining now would have to pay his own way.