SDS Will. Picket and Stage Sit-in Against Trade with South Africa

The Students for a Democratic Society plan to picket Boston firms that trade with South Africa and will stage a sit-in at the First National Bank of Boston on March 19 to protest U.S. economic involvement in South Africa.

SDS will sponsor similar demonstrations throughout the U.S. on this date, the fifth anniversary of the killing of 68 Negroes by police in Sharpeville, South Africa.

Tentative plans call for picketing along Federal St. in front of the main offices of the Kendall Corporation and United Shoe Machinery, firms which trade with South Africa. The First National Bank, target of the sit-in, recently financed a floating loan to the South Africa government.

SDS charges U.S. business with stabilizing the South African economy, which suffered from world reaction to Sharpeville immediately after the incident.

An SDS flier charges that U.S. business has "recreated a booming South African economy based on oppression and exploitation" by increasing investment in that country by 250 per cent in five years.