Five Harvard Students Jailed in St. Augustine

Five Harvard students went to Florida for Spring vacation--not to the beaches of Daytona, but to St. Augustine's segregated jail.

The students answered a plea that the Rev. Charles P. Price, Preacher to the University, made on Easter Sunday. He relayed a call from the Rev. Harvey Cox, Boston organizer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

SCLC, active in St. Augustine since last fall, had mounted a special campaign during the last two weeks and needed more volunteers to replace those workers who had already been jailed.

Five students were able to go, and left Sunday night, arriving in St. Augustine on Tuesday. They had not done any civil rights demonstrating before, but, as William G. Whitney, a graduate student in economics, said, "the appeal hit home." Michael W. Boyd '66 commented, "You can only lend moral support for so long, and then you must do something active."

Peter M.P. Atkinson '66, William H. Becker, teaching fellow in Theology, and Whitney were arrested Wednesday for "trespassing, being undesirable guests, and conspiracy" after trying to be served at the Ponce de Leon Motor Hotel's restaurant. Their bail was set at $750 apiece--$250 for each count. The other two, Soheil Zendeh '66 and Boyd, were arrested for "inciting a riot" while watching Negro students march on and try to be served in the Ponce de Leon Hotel. Each was held on $1500 bail.

288 Arrested

They were among 288 arrested last week in St. Augustine, over 200 of whom were Negro high-school students from the Florida town. The students had all marched on Wednesday from the old slave market to the Ponce de Leon Hotel, where they were arrested for trying to be served.

A waiting line soon formed outside the jail as demonstrators waited to be processed. Since bail money could not be raised, people were not released until late Thursday night, when a judge ruled that the sheriff had to accept bondsmen's bond in lieu of cash bail.

The Rev. J. Lawrence Burkholder, professor of Pastoral Theology, who was arrested with Mrs. Malcolm Peabody last Wednesday, described St. Augustine as not a historic but a "prehistoric" city. "It is one of the most conservative cities in the United States," he said.

He had little time, however, to view the situation in St. Augustine, for he arrived in the city at 10:30 a.m. Wednes- day from a vacation in Miami, joined Mrs. Peabody and others at the Ponce de Leon Motor Hotel, and was arrested an hour later.

SCLC has also organized a less publicized community-wide attempt in Williamston, North Carolina. Three students at the Divinity School went down as representatives of the Harvard Divinity School Civil Rights Committee.

John B. Lawton Jr., Richard A. Horsley, and William R. Law joined 50 other members of the Massachusetts unit of the SCLC in sit-ins in three restaurants along an inter-state highway. They were arrested and spent three days in jail until they were bailed out on Friday