Harvard Junior Jailed In Test of Rights Law

On July 4, four civil rights workers, including a Harvard junior, were arrested in Selma, Ala. while testing the public accommodations secton of the Civil Rights Law of 1964. They have remained in jail since Saturday, unable to post the $500 cash bail that has been demanded for each count.

James W. Wiley, 2nd, '65 and three other Negro SNCC workers were charged with trespassing after warning when they refused to leave a segregated restaurant after the manager had requested them to do so. Wiley was also charged with resisting arrest.

Yesterday afternoon police arrested 50 more Negroes, including John Lewis, national SNCC official. The mass arrest--reportedly involving the extensive use of nightsticks and electric cattle prods--marked the first day of a Freedom week launched yesterday by civil rights organizations in Selma.

There was no trouble, however, at a mass rally last night addressed by Rev. Ralph Abernathy, secretary to Martin Luther King.

Habeas Corpus

Joseph L. Chestnut, Jr., one of the lawyers for Wiley and the other jailed workers, told the Summer News last night that a writ of habeas corpus would be sought in the Federal District Court for southern Alabama this morning, in an attempt to free the four workers arrested Saturday.

Chestnut had hoped to convince the sheriff to accept property bonds instead of cash to avoid the need for filing in the federal court, 169 miles away in Mobile. The sheriff, however, has insisted on cash.

Earlier in the day, the sheriff's office had told the Summer News, there was "no Mr. Wiley in jail here. We got a nigger named Wily down here, though. Is that who you mean?" The sheriff said no date had yet been set for the trial.

According to reports from SNCC's Atlanta headquarters, there were no federal authorities in Selma beyond the local FBI.