In disclosing plans for a massive antiwar offensive this Spring, Boston area peace groups called for a week of war resistance activities beginning April 13 and culminating in a mass rally at Boston Common on April 15.
The April 15 Coalition, a merging of 30 anti-war groups including the SDS, the Student Mobilization Committee (SMC), and the November Action Committee (NAC), is sponsoring the mid-April demonstration which is expected to draw more than 25,000.
Speakers
Speakers at the rally will include: Carol Lipman, SMC National Executive Secretary; Michael Kelly, Socialist Worker's Party candidate for governor of Massachusetts; and Ngo Vinh Dong, a Vietnamese student now studying at Harvard.
A spokesman for the April 15 Coalition said that Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy (D-Minn) and David Hilliard, secretary of the Black Panther Party might also speak.
Richard E. Hyland '70, NAC member, said his group's activities during the week would include a march for Bobby Seale on April 14. The march would originate at Post Office Square and would end at Berkeley Street with a demonstration against the Boston police station there.
Hyland said that the NAC would form a red flag brigade at the Boston Commonrally in support of the NLF and "all groups who are involved in the fight for self-determined governments."
The NAC has also scheduled a march on Cambridge after the rally for all those who "are serious about getting out of Vietnam."
Hyland said that he expects this part of the campaign, sloganeer "stay in the streets," to draw upwards of 10.000 protesters for a march on the Cambridge Draft Board and other targets in the Cambridge area.
The Vietnam Moratorium Committee (VMC) announced plans for a three-day fast (April 13-15) in protest of the war. Harvard-Radcliffe is not expected to grant rebates for the fast such as it did for the fast last Fall.
Bill Scheer, SMC spokesman, said that his group considers the demonstrations a springboard for their campaign to hold a state-wide referendum on the war.
"We hope through canvassing of homes this spring and summer that we will obtain enough signatures in key districts throughout the state to put this issue on the ballot in the fall elections," Scheer said.
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