Room 56-123

April 9, 1968

The Boston Globe
Wa. T. Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, Massachusetts

To the Editor:

I want to congratulate you on your editorial "Black Self-Policing”
(April 9) and to comment on the 21 demands presented by Roxbury's
United Front.

At first sight, these demands may strike even liberal white people
as excessive and Utopian. Yet, cereful thought has led me to see

their soundness, cogency, and urgency. Two reasons for this must

be understood.

Firet, “normal” progressive steps have proved futile in effecting
the fulfillment of black Americans, and radical steps are the only
remaining hope for success without going through an ordeal) by fire.

Second, American society must make up JQW, in institutional autonomy
and economic contribution, a part of ti®institutional and economic
property which it has taken for centuries from ite black sector.
This is no charity, no benevolent concession: it must be seen as a
start of restitution.

Note that the $100,000,000 requasted by the United Front for Roxbury
is what the United States spends each day in Vietnam.

Sincerely yours,

sel/na 8. E. Luria
(Sedgwick Professor of Biology)