NSA to Launch National Fund Drive In Support of Southern Integration

The National Student Association, in conjunction with several other national youth organizations, will soon initiate an extensive drive to raise funds for the student integration movement in the South. The major share of the funds will be donated to the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Atlanta, chief coordinating unit for Southern student action.

A recent step-up in non-violent demonstrations, including last week a prayer meeting in McComb, Miss., which resulted in the arrest of 114 students, has greatly depleted SNCC's resources. It now has 17 full-time people in the field, and $1000 in the bank, according to Paul Potter, National Affairs vice-President of NSA.

Potter, who was beaten up in McComb while working with the SNCC organizers of the prayer meeting, said yesterday that NSA will hold a meeting in New York within 10 days to prepare final plans for the Southern Student Freedom Fund, as the project is called.

Several other national groups--the Young Democrats, YMCA, Students for a Democratic Society, National Federation of Catholic College Students, and the Student Christian Movement--have already pledged support, and will attend the New York meeting, Potter said.

To publicize the fund drive and the southern demonstrations. NSA and SNCC are also planning a nation-wide Freedom Day, on which students throughout the country will stage non-violent segregation protests.

Immediate plans call for a "crash program" on about ten Eastern campuses to collect enough money to keep SNCC going until the drive begins.

The Southern Student Freedom Fund will be administreed by Walter Williams, former student body president at Jackson State College in Mississippi. Williams was expelled last week for leading a boycott of classes.