“Mainly we’re taking food and morale,” Mrs. Stanley Murphy of Chilmark remarked on Tuesday, on the eve of the departure of five Vineyard women - Mrs. David E. Lilienthal Jr., Mrs. Henry C. Smith, Mrs. Nancy Hodgson, Mrs. Milton Mazer, and Mrs. Murphy - for Williamston, N. C., that southern community in which the segregated black population has become allied with the Vineyard in a freedom movement.

Williamston. Town (Pop. 3,966) co, seat of martin Co., n.e. N. C., on the Roanoke and ESE of Rocky Mount; inc. 1779. It is a tobacco market and has fisheries, a peanut processing factory, and lumber mills.

Dr. Robert W. Nevin is on his way this morning to Williamston, N. C., as a participant in the civil rights demonstration in which, last week, the Rev. Henry L. Bird, rector of the Episcopal Parish on Martha’s Vineyard, was arrested and jailed in that southern town. His departure from Boston by automobile, with four others, may have been seen on television by Islanders who have long been his patients, his friends, and his admirers.

The Rev. Henry L. Bird was released from jail in Williamston, N. C., on Wednesday, along with others of the group of fifty, northern ministers and local people, who were arrested last week following a non-violent demonstration.

The bond posted for their release had to be supplied by local taxpayers or property owners (any amount of money had been offered and was ready on the Vineyard), and although the necessary amount was nominal, said to be only $125, even that sum couldn’t be supplied by sympathetic people in the town except by liens on their properties.

The following Statement of Interpretation was given at Grace Church, Vineyard Haven, on Sunday morning, by the Rev. D. Norman Brady of Falmouth. Mr. Brady was supplying at the service of morning prayer in the absence of the Rev. Henry L. Bird, rector. The statement:

In a letter to Rev. Henry L. Bird, the text of which follows, Mrs. Robert W. Nevin of Edgartown has expressed her support and admiration for his decision to join the civil rights demonstration in North Carolina:

“As one of your parishioners and a fellow citizen, I want to give full support to your decision to join an anti-segregation demonstration in Williamston, N. C., with its almost inevitable result of your having been jailed there.

“Why are you not here?” Thoreau Asked

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The action which led to the jailing of the Rev. Henry L. Bird in Williamston, N. C., last week, is reminiscent of an anecdote about Henry Thoreau of Massachusetts. Thoreau was put into Concord jail because he refused action which he believed was immoral. Emerson strolled down to the jail to visit his friend. “Why are you here, Henry?” he said. “Why are you not here, Waldo?” replied Thoreau.

The Rev. Henry L. Bird, rector of the Episcopal Parish on Martha’s Vineyard, is with a group of ten clergymen, this week in Williamston, N. C., engaged in non-violent action in the cause of civil rights. His decision to go was announced during the service of morning prayer, Sunday at St. Andrew’s Church, Edgartown.