35,000 Flock to Anti-War Rally

More than 35,000 people rallied at Soldiers' Field yesterday afternoon in support of the national student strike and to protest the foreign and domestic policies of the United States government.

Howard Zinn, professor of Government at Boston University, and Harvard graduate student Margaret Marshal chaired the rally which was called by a coalition of strike committees from throughout the Boston area.

Fourteen different speakers addressed the rally, including Doug Miranda, East Coast Captain of the Black Panther Party, Peter Camejo, of the Socialist Worker Party, a Kent State student, a high school student, six members of Bread and Roses, and two labor union representatives.

While demonstrators crowded the field, over 200 Boston policemen stood by on Boylston Street and around the Business School. But the three-hour meeting was virtually without incident.

Demonstrators gathered in the early afternoon at five points-Boston University, the Boston Common, the Cambridge Common, the Fens area, and Boston College-and marched to the rally which began at 4:45 p.m.

Miranda, who spoke at the Harvard mass meeting in Sanders Theatre Monday night, told yesterday's rally that the American student movement was "at the crossroads."

"Will you continue to stand before the National Guard with your moral arguments," Miranda asked, "or will you take your correct and justified struggle to a new level of resistance?"

Citing the death of the four Kent State students, he asked the audience to "remember how many times black people have stood before you and tried to make you understand how vicious the pigs are."

Camejo, speaking toward the end of the rally, told the audience not to "play revolution, but to be revolutionaries." Receiving loud and continuous applause, he urged the rally-goers to go into the communities today and "reach out to the people" to gather support for an anti-war referendum on the November ballot.

After Camejo's speech, meeting sites for the "Reach Out" campaign were announced. Harvard canvassers will be meeting beginning at 9 a.m. this morning at Emerson Hall.

Patty Williams, a local high school student, called for unity among high school students. Charging that there were already too many forces attempting to manipulate thm, she asked that high school students be left alone to organize themselves.

She attacked the tracking system, grades, and exams, all of which, she said, breed competition and divide middle class from working class students.

Six members of Bread and Roses, a Boston-based women's liberation group, also addressed the rally. The six wore black masks to "avoid creating leaders" in the movement, one woman explained.

A fight broke out when one of the demonstrators attempted to heckle the women, but it was quickly broken up by other demonstrators.

Noam Chomsky, M.I.T. linguistics professor, and two union leaders-the president of the United Electrical Workers Local 205 and the International representative of the Amalgamated Meat-cutters-also spoke at the rally and expressed solidarity with striking students.

A statement from Father Daniel Berrigan, one of the Catonsville 9, was read by Zinn and called on fellow "bums, freaks, students and countrymen" to make the most of the strike.