The Civil Rights Muddle

Only Berkeley sent more volunteers than Harvard on last summer's COFO project in Mississippi. At present, however, it appears that very few Harvard students will be working in the South this summer. This is not because enthusiasm for civil rights has fallen off appreciably here but because of the decision, and indecisiveness, of the civil rights groups themselves both nationally and on campus.

SNCC, which lead the COFO coalition, has deliberately avoided mass recruitment of Northerners for Southern work. The group decided early this year to emphasize Negro initiative at the local level and to turn recruitment over to individual community projects throughout Mississippi. Many of last year's volunteers will certainly be invited back, and anyone is free to sign up now for consideration by the local leaders. But the invitation procedure will be much more quiet and less glamorous than last year's drive.

CORE has several Southern projects but has advertised them hardly at all.

The only organization actively seeking Northern volunteers is Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The Selma incident diverted SCLC's attention at a key point in the recruitment drive, but the SCOPE project has inspired the formation of chapters at several key universities. At both the University of Minnesota and Brandeis, SCOPE groups are training for a summer of voter registration work. As explained in today's insert, each chapter will work under the supervision of Negro leaders in preselected Southern communities.

Why doesn't Harvard have a SCOPE chapter? The story is rather involved. Originally the Young Democrats agreed to form one but, after several weeks of deliberation and contemplation, decided not to. Peter Weiner, president of the YD's, explained that he had doubts about the project. Had the preselected communities been adequately researched by the SCLC staff? Was there a danger that massive Northern participation would smother or inhibit local initiative? And, undoubtedly, Weiner was reluctant to throw his organization into the factional strief of the civil rights movement: many YD's belong to SNCC, and SNCC takes a dim, or at least cautious view of this SCLC undertaking.

But, by last Friday, Weiner had begun to reconsider the decision to withdraw. He and the Rev. Richard E. Mumma of the United Ministry met with several civil-rights leaders on campus to discuss the whole muddle. Mumma suggested that the Harvard community might focus its efforts on a single Southern community, perhaps beginning the project under SCOPE auspices, but eventually operating independently. As shown by the letter in yesterday's CRIMSON, Harold McDougall and other members of the Civil Rights Coordinating Committee doubted the efficacy of such a step. CRCC heavily favors the SNCC local initiative approach.

Last Saturday Hosea Williams of SCLC came to Harvard and explained the plans of the SCOPE project. He convinced Weiner, but most of the CRCC people remained skeptical if not about the project certainly about Harvard's participation in it.

As reported today, Weiner has once again decided to join the SCOPE program. But, because of all the delay and confusion, there is no longer enough time to form and train a separate Harvard chapter. Instead the YD's will channel interested students to the Brandeis chapter, which will work in Columbia, South Carolina.

By now, of course, many potential volunteers have made other commitments for the summer. To attract those who haven't, the YD's must finally be done with vacillation and get to work recruiting and informing.

More important, the YD's, CRCC, and all other civil rights organizations on campus should take positive steps to insure against similar mixups next year. By its nature, CRCC should have taken the lead this year, disseminating information about all the opportunities for Southern work to all political and service clubs early in the year. If ties with SNCC prevent CRCC from working as a true coordinating committee, a new oversight group is needed. Many colleges have official civil rights bureaus in the dean's office, but Harvard's tradition of political neutrality precludes this possibility. To fill the gap, interested students and faculty must take a hand in the rather undramatic task of seeing that internecine rivalries don't paralyze the work of all concerned.