Professors, Demonstrators Ask Intervention in Selma

Thirteen Harvard Law and Medical School professors sent a telegram yesterday to President Johnson protesting police action against the demonstrators in Selma, Alabama and urging federal intervention, while Boston civil rights groups scheduled a protest rally for today.

The telegram read in part: "We who support you feel that the promise of the Great Society will be illusory if you do not exercise your . . . right to safeguard the basic human and constitutional rights of the people. Surely the time for . . . effective executive action has now come."

Among the signers are: Paul M. Bator, professor of Law; David F. Cavers, Fessenden Professor of Law; Vern Countryman, professor of Law; Alan M. Dershowits, assistant professor of Law; Charles Fried, assistant professor of Law; and Mark DeWolfe Howe '28, professor of Law.

Other signers include David Hurwitz '25, associate clinical professor of Medicine; Louis L. Jaffe, Byrne Professor of Administrative Law; Yale Kamisar, visiting professor of Law; John, H. Mansfield '51, professor of Law; David L. Shapiro '54, assistant professor of Law; Henry J. Steiner '51, assistant professor of Law; and Bernard Wolfman, visiting professor of Law.

Today's demonstration in Boston will protest police brutality in Selma, and demand immediate federal intervention there. The civil rights groups want federal action to take two forms: protective measures for Selma's Negroes, and prompt arrests of Sheriff Jim Clark, and the director of Alabama's Department of Public Safety, Colonel Al Lingo.

Organizations from most of the colleges in the Boston area, including Harvard's CRCC, will participate. Claude L. Weaver, '66, a SNCC field secretary, and Howard Zinn, an associate professor of Government at Boston University, will address the rally.

The demonstration will begin at 12:30 p.m. in front of the Federal Building in Boston's Post Office Square.

Independently, Larry D. Benson, assistant professor of English and Allston Burr Senior Tutor in Quincy House, began a telephone campaign last night to urge his friends to send telegrams to President Johnson, protesting the actions of the Alabma police and requesting federal protection for the marchers.