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23 YELLOW SPRINGS NEWS The GUIDE to YELLOW SPRINGS 2019 – 20 Jenni f er’s Touch Classic Contemporary • Unique Fine Jewelry Handmade Sterling & Gold Mon.–Sun. 11–6 • 937-470-2680 • 220 Xenia Ave. focal point of a decade-long desegregation campaign by the YSCFP, in addition to the Antioch Committee for Racial Equality and the Antioch College chapter of the NAACP. To then-Antioch student Prexy Nesbitt, discrimination taking place in a Northern town that considered itself tolerant was an added motivation to activists. “The whole Gegner incident served as a reminder … that you could look right around the corner and find manifestations of the same bigotry and close-mindedness as in the South,” Nesbitt said, adding that this was a “particular affront” that fueled local activists. Direct action vs. legal recourse The YSCFP organized picketing at Geg - ner’s shop on Saturday mornings with two to three people at a time in a public display that became as much a part of the down- town scene as the weekly peace protest on Xenia Avenue is now, Graham said. In 1961, the YSCFP selected Graham to be the test case for a complaint the group planned to file to the newly formed Ohio Civil Rights Commission. He was accompa- nied by Hardy Trolander, a YSCFP member who was also a co-founder of Yellow Springs Instruments. At the time, Graham was a chemist for Vernay Laboratories, having graduated from Antioch in 1952. “I just figured that something had to be done,” Graham said. “I thought it was just filing a complaint. I didn’t realize it could become a full-time job.” After the Ohio Civil Rights Commission ordered Gegner to stop his discrimina - tory practices, Gegner filed an appeal to the Greene County Court of Appeals and won. Graham then won the appeal at the district level, sending the case to the Ohio Supreme Court. It was the first time Ohio’s public accommodations law had been challenged since it was passed in 1878, Trolander said. But many Antioch student activists felt that the legal route was too slow and urged an escalation of direct action at Gegner’s shop, according to Graham. They began acts of civil disobedience, sitting in the shop and refusing to leave. One student was Nesbitt, who went to Gegner’s shop, sat in his barber’s chair and asked for a haircut. Gegner draped an apron over his face and Nesbitt stayed there for 30 to 40 minutes before he was arrested. Antioch students also started picketing additional days of the week and increased the number of picketers, causing a reaction from Gegner and a group of downtown merchants. “We were uptight but controlled,” Tro - lander said of the YSCFP. “The [Antioch] students got involved and took over with a bit more of a heavy hand.” Gegner and the downtown merchants, claiming that the protests were hurting business, won an injunction at the Greene County Court that limited protestors to no more than three at a time. To continue pick - eting in large numbers, the activists would have to disobey the law. “There was a good bit of feeling among students that townspeople were not moving fast enough,” Graham said. “They felt that the lawsuit wasn’t going to get anything done, that the only way was to do direct action.” Gegner incident Continued on page 24 PHOTO COURTESY OF ANTIOCHIANA, ANTIOCH COLLEGE Lewis Gegner, top right, tried to remove Antioch student Jim Fearn from his shop in 1964. PHOTO COURTESY OF ANTIOCHIANA, ANTIOCH COLLEGE From left, Arthur Morgan, Paul Graham, an unidentified man, Walter Anderson and Hardy Trolander (partially obscured) led a march through Yellow Springs soon after the Gegner incident. More than 550 people participated in the march.