Harvard and Radcliffe students joined others from area colleges and members of CORE Saturday in picketing to protest segregation in southern Howard Johnson restaurants.

Seventy-five demonstrators from Harvard, Radcliffe, B.U., Brandeis, Babson Institute, MIT, and Wellesley, and CORE members picketed the Howard Johnson chain's national office in Wollaston and Boston's Commonwealth Avenue and Chestnut Avenue restaurants. The local protest was part of a demonstration in 29 cities nationwide.

Alan Gartner, chairman of the Boston chapter of the Committee on Racial Equality, claimed that as a direct result of Saturday's picket, Howard Johnson's national office has asked for a preliminary meeting to consider negotiating desegregation of the chain's restaurants in North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Alabama.

Gartner called the picket "an enormous success." The national goal of the demonstration was to inform the public about Howard Johnson discrimination and get added support for CORE's position.

Thirty demonstrators gathered in the rain at the Commonwealth Avenue restaurant and picketed solemnly for two hours. Their signs read "28 Flavors But Only One Color" and "100 Arrested in North Carolina For Eating At Ho Jo's."

Passersby stared curiously; many smiled or laughed. One couple stood watching the picketers for a long time and then said to one of the group: "We've just gotten the point. We'll eat somewhere else."

Manager Agrees With Principle

CORE officials met with the restaurant managers before beginning the picket. They reported that the Common-wealth Avenue manager sympathized with the principle of the picket.

begun early last summer and aimed at

The Howard Johnson protest is part of CORE's Freedom Highways project eliminating discrimination in public facilities along the nation's highways.

During the summer more than 100 Negroes and whites were arrested for trying to desegregate Howard Johnson restaurants in North Carolina.

Subsequently CORE called a meeting with North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford, who appointed a citizens' committee to study the situation. On the recommendation of the committee he asked that all public eating places in the state desegregate. Ten of 20 Howard Johnson's in the state are now desegregated; Saturday's demonstration was in protest of continued refusal by others to serve Negroes or to negotiate for desegregation.