TO BUY BUILDING Afro Center Committee Plans Drive for Funds

The Afro-American Cultural Center Committee is organizing a fund drive to purchase the building at 20 Sacramento Street, the proposed site of the Afro-American Cultural Center.

Eric L. Jones '70, president of the Center, said yesterday that the committee hopes to purchase the Harvard-owned building by the end of this school year. "We're organizing a private fund drive, contacting people interested in black culture and Afro-American studies, to raise the funds we need to buy the building," Jones said.

Plans for the purchase of a site for the Center have been underway since the Rosovsky Committee-established immediately after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in April, 1968 to study the possibilities of a black studies program at Harvard-presented its report to the Faculty last February.

Article 17 of the Report said, "A central point of the Committee's work should be the establishment of a Center or Institute for Afro-American Studies. The purpose of this institution would be to provide intellectual leadership, a physical, locale, and sufficient material resources for consideration of all aspects of the Afro-American experience."

The Center Committee met this summer to choose the site of the Center and to formulate plans for the programs which the Center will offer. Suggestions under consideration are discussion groups in black jazz, poetry and literature, seminars on current social problems, and dramatic productions.

The Center will house the two black publications at Harvard, L'Ouverture and the Journal for Negro Affairs. L'Ouverture, the Harvard newsletter for black students, recently published a poll on the Center. The Journal is a collection of essays, poetry and stories written by black students.

The Center will be run by the chairmen of the various subcommittees of the Center Committee and the Trustees, a group of adult advisors.

"The Trustees are concerned with the overall operation and continuity of the Center." said Jones. "They will handle the financial and legal matters." Tom Atkins, Boston city councillor. Attorney Henry F. Owens, candidate for the Boston City Council, and Mrs. Muriel Snowden, head of Freedom House in Roxbury, are members of this group.