Meredith Asks for Leadership To Push for Integration Plans

Black civil rights leader James Meredith said yesterday in Boston that he suspected "very suspicious games are being played by the politicians trying to solve the school desegregation problem in Boston."

Meredith, the first black student at the University of Mississippi, said there had been no city or state action to implement Federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity's order for school integration.

"The Boston school committee and the city and state governments are attempting to do now what George Wallace tried to do without success," Meredith said. He spoke at a press conference for the National Student Conference Against Racism. Meredith will speak at the conference this weekend.

1966 March

Meredith organized the 1966 "March Against Fear," a drive to register southern black voters. He led marchers on a 260 mile trip from Memphis. Tenn. to Jacksonville. Miss. registering more than 4000 blacks. Boston needs redistricting carried out on the basis of figures gathered by an objective non-interested party, Meredith said.

Mississippi Did It

If Mississippi, which is over half black, could achieve desegregation, then Boston, which is only 15 per cent black, should also be able to do it, Meredith said.

Meredith said he thought the conference in Boston would be important because "how Boston deals with desegregation will determine how the rest of the country deals with it."

National Conference coordinator Maceo Dixon said yesterday the conference expects over 1000 student activists from all over the country to attend.

"From all local and national indications the conference will be the largest, most representative and broadly backed gathering of its kind ever," Dixon said.