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24 The GUIDE to YELLOW SPRINGS 2019 – 20 YELLOW SPRINGS NEWS A Distinctive Country Inn Hotel “ A Visual Masterpiece” – Cincinnati Enquirer Recommended by OHIO Magazine and Fodor’s Travel Guide • Deluxe Continental Breakfast • Completely Smoke-Free Facility • Deluxe Jacuzzi Suites • Historical Displays Just 10 minutes from Yellow Springs! 10 S. Main Street (Rt. 72) Cedarville, Ohio 937-766-3000 www. HearthstoneInn.com Al Kahina Middle Eastern (Belly) Dance Studio Traditional Arabic Women’s Dance Classes & Performances Kathleen Hennessy 767-1301 KathleenHennessy0801@gmail.com EDITORIAL: APRI L 23 , 1964— What the Negro is trying to say About a month after the Gegner incident, Pat Matthews, a Yellow Springs News staff member, and later, columnist, wrote this editorial, which was published in newspapers throughout the country and attracted national attention. It is reprinted here from the April 23, 1964, edition of the News. By PAT MATTHEWS With sit-ins, pray-ins, stall-ins, walk-ins, lie-ins, cry-ins and picketing, the world is still asking “What does the Negro really want?” Maybe we have not expressed ourselves as clearly as we could or should but we know the desires that motivate our actions, whatever they are, and we may not know where we are going but we know where we would like to go and use the only methods available in our attempt to get there. What do we want? A Negro man sees a sign or an ad in the paper that says “House for Sale, Veterans No Down Payment — $65.50 a mo. Nice Neighborhood. Insurance included.” He would like to say, “I make $100 per week. I am a veteran, I want the house.” If he has $3 and is hungry he would like to go into a restaurant and order a steak dinner, be served without being refused or have the proprietor act as though he wants the waitress to sit on his lap. If he wants a haircut, he would like to pay the price, whatever it costs, receive service and not be treated as though the barber thinks he wants to join him in a friendly round of drinks and a card game. A man making $6,000 per year would like to know that he too can purchase a car, a home, decent clothing, educate his children and still not starve to death by having avail - able to him one loan for which he makes a reasonable payment each month, instead of having to make several small loans repaid in unreasonable amounts and at high rates of interest. This, my friends, happens all over the United States as he watches his white friends achieve more and more, working no harder and possibly shorter hours. When he reads of the murder of Medgar Evers, the respected Negro leader, in Missis- sippi, he would like to see the slayer con- victed, not hailed as a great hero. If a Negro commits a crime of lesser degree, he is seldom tried in Mississipi; he simply disappears — lynched? enslaved? drowned? Who knows? When the civil rights bill is in the Senate, he would like to have some feeling of assurance that the men elected are really trying to pass a good law instead of seeing a few men waste valuable time reading reci - pes for a new spring salad or 50 new ways to cook hamburgers on a cookout. The Negro would like the opportunity to be hired for a job on the basis of his quali- fications and not have to always “be better than the other man” in order to do the same work, and not be closely watched to see if he is contemplating an interracial marriage. He, too, would like the privilege of “choosing his neighbors” and saying to the other man “don’t worry about having me for your neighbor, I’m more worried about having you for mine — you are the type of person by whom I don’t want my children to be influenced.” He wants the opportunity to send his children to the best schools with the finest facilities, to the well-recommended colleges and universities, without filling a “quota” or representing token integration. He would also like to see members of his race truly represent him — not chosen by a group and controlled by the same in order to say “we have a Negro representative.” And lastly, we even want the right to have a few obnoxious persons in our race — our Wallace, Eastland, Long, William Miller, representative Howard Smith, etc. — without being called ignorant. In other words, we want the right to pick and choose, make our own decisions, laugh, live and love, make mistakes as individuals, have our “types” of people in all walks of life and still not be labeled as “the colored folks.” The masses of people know that they want these things. Most of them are unsure of how to say them and their methods of achieving them are few, but they know what they want. Won’t you listen?  ♦ Graham recalls participating in discus - sions at Antioch until midnight to try to convince students of the advantages of the legal course. But the students were “impa- tient,” he said. The day after the injunction was granted, students planned a large demonstration in front of Gegner’s shop for Saturday, March 14, 1964, in defiance of the court’s order and the Antioch College administration, which said it would suspend any participat - ing student. The Antioch student protesters, who were joined by villagers and other students from Central State and Wilberforce, walked downtown, sat in the middle of Xenia Avenue and linked their arms. Outside police forces were called in and chaos ensued as the approximately 150 police officers turned fire hoses and tear gas upon the protesters while villagers watched in shock. News of the event, which was labeled a “riot,” went national. Gegner never re-opened his barbershop, and the Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear the case without a defendant. A moral victory Graham was disappointed that after years of work, his case would not be heard in the state’s highest court. And after the highly pub - licized confrontation, Graham began to receive threatening letters and phone calls, some from as far away as Mississippi and Alabama. “The action caused Gegner to close and create more turmoil in the village and result Gegner Continued from page 23 YS NEWS ARCHIVE PHOTO Longtime Yellow Springs News staff member Pat Matthews is shown here in a photo dated November 1961. Matthews penned an editorial following the Gegner incident that was published widely. in more conflict,” Graham said. “We weren’t interested in conflict, we were just inter - ested in change.” Trolander too was frustrated but realized that the confrontation was inevitable. “Everything was leading toward that incident,” Trolander said. “The only way for that to be avoided was if Gegner changed his mind. It reached a point of no return — there were too many people involved and committed.” As it turned out, the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed later that year, outlawing all forms of racial discrimination in the U.S. According to Nesbitt, even though Gegner never consented to cutting a black person’s hair, it was a “moral victory” that he closed his shop. The escalation itself proved that the protesters made an impact and gave Yellow Springs a lasting reputation. “I think that when we get this escala- tion it means that you’re having an effect,” Nesbitt said. “When the forces of repres - sion are very worried and want to stop it, I think that’s a point where we say that we’ve made a dent. In the case of Yellow Springs and the barbershop, it sent a message to all of southern Ohio that Yellow Springs stood for something.” Yellow Springs native Bomani Moyenda, just a third grader at the time, watched the police tear gas protesters from the sidewalk with his mother and sister. The incident had a lasting personal effect on him. “It was important for people in the village to take a stand against something that was overtly racist,” Moyenda said. “It meant a lot for me to see townspeople standing up against what they perceived was racial injustice.”  ♦