The Atlanta Inquirer

Multiple protests have been filed with city and federal officials as the result of resistance by a Trailways Bus Terminal restaurant in Atlanta to the Interstate Commerce Commission's anti-segregation edict.

Mayor Ivan Allen was attacked on the issue this week in a telegram filed with him by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Allen wired a reply the next day that, in effect, denied the students' allegations.

The latest series of protests came after two young women were arrested last Monday when they tried to eat in Jake's Fine Food, located in the bus terminal.

The women, identified as Miss Elizabeth Hirshfeld and Miss Bertha Gober, have past records of arrests in connection with demonstrations against segregation.

Miss Gober was suspended from Albany State College recently, allegedly because of her anti-segregation activity. Miss Hirshfeld took part in last summer's Freedom Rides, and spent 30 days in a Mississippi jail.

SNCC Chairman Charles McDew, in December, asked Ivan Allen to halt discrimination at the restaurant.

After the latest arrests Monday, McDew told Mayor Allen: "You are responsible for the flagrant violations of the Atlanta Police Department."

McDew asked Allen "when are you going to stop the police department from violating the ICC ruling? We await your reply."

Allen replied: "Acknowledgement is made of your wires concerning the arrest of two young women in Jake's Restaurant. Investigation shows that all reasonable consideration was given to these two people before charges were made by the police department.

"In my opinion the incident was created in order to make a test case. The matter now addresses itself to the courts and I am sure that as people committed to the proposition of being law abiding citizens you will agree that this is a proper channel for the settlement of disputes."

SNCC also asked the Justice Department in Washington, D. C., to "immediately halt flagrant violations of the ICC ruling at Jake's cafeteria in the Trailways Bus Terminal in Atlanta.

Meanwhile, William Adams, of the ICC office in Atlanta, said that his department's attorneys were working on a petition that is to be presented to the local U. S. Attorney's office.

Adams refused to divulge the exact nature of the ICC proposal to the U. S. Attorney's office, but he did indicate that Jake's Fine Food would be the central figure in the document. This petition grows out of similar arrests at the restaurant in early December.

JAIL THAT WAY -- Bertha Gober, left, and Elizabeth Hirshfeld, clutch bags of food after they were arraigned in Recorders Court and bound over to county court under $500 bonds each for unsuccessfully trying to eat at Jake's Fine Food in the Trailway Bus Terminal. Their eyes are turned in the direction of the county jail where they were being taken.