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GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS  |  2020 – 2021 33 but everywhere. “There were Black entre- preneurs, and as desegrega- tion continued, it diluted the stream of Black business people who had to be self- reliant and resilient,” she said. “And it took decades in some cases, but going into the ’80s, that change was solid.” She also said that, histori- cally, the realm of business wasn’t the only area affected by a decline in Black repre- sentation in the village. “I think it’s misleading when you talk about Black businesses and downtown, because there were Black people of authority and responsibility in every aspect of life,” she said. During her childhood in the 1960s, there were numerous examples of Black villagers in leadership posi- tions, including Police Chief James McKee, Mayor James Lawson, Fire Chief Andy Benning and longtime school board member Paul Ford. Many of the teachers at the village’s public schools, she said, were Black. She echoed a sentiment made by the late Phyllis Jackson in a 2010 YS News story, after reflecting on the same period of Black leader- ship in the village. “You’d think this was a Black town,” Jackson said. Records of many of the village’s Black-owned busi- nesses are preserved in “Blacks in Yellow Springs: A Community Encyclope- dia,” which The 365 Project published in 2016. McKee was part of the committee that assembled the reference book, and said that com- munity recollection was the primary source for its entries. “We literally were operat- ing off the memory of our elders — Phyllis Jackson, Paul Graham, Betty Ford, Isabel Newman — a long list of people who remembered the Whether it’s talking through ideas, or working out alternate living plans while a project is in progress, we work with you each step of the way to realize and fulfill your living space needs. Advance planning will help us to better satisfy your building needs schedule ● GENERAL CONTRACTING ● ADDITIONS ● INTERIOR & EXTERIOR UPGRADES ● KITCHENS & BATHS ● ASPHALT & METAL ROOF ● CUSTOM WOODWORKS 937-767-1880 OFFICE 937-776-1237 CELL 3970 ST. RTE. 370, YELLOW SPRINGS, OH 45387 COMPLETEBUILDINGSERVICELLC@YAHOO.COM WWW.COMPLETEBUILDINGSERVICELLC.COM COMPLETE BUILDING SERVICE,LLC FROM CONCEPT TO COMPLETION JUAN RODRIGUEZ village in those days,” she said. As many of the village’s Black elders have passed on — Jackson and Newman died this year — Jalyn Roe said that the torch of memory is being passed to a younger gen- eration of Black villagers, like herself, McKee and Robinson. “I remember, there was a Black dentist in town named Dr. Pemberton, and he told my mom, ‘We’re the bum- pers — we have to carry on to make sure the Black businesses and people stay, that they have us to bump up against,” Roe said. “Now we are those bumpers — we have to tell the stories.” Robinson said that the village’s shift to a tourism- based economy over the years also contributed to the loss of Black businesses — the kinds of businesses that kept the village self-sufficient, and which were undercut by the growing world and the availability of those services outside of town. The ongo- ing pandemic, however, has impressed upon her the ways in which a self-sustaining village, where villagers don’t have to travel and interact with the world at large for necessities, could be an answer to the problems the pandemic has created. “The only way we’re going to survive — politically, economically and in terms of public health — is to have small, self-reliant communi- ties,” she said. McKee said that’s the kind of business district she remembers from her youth — and hopes the village can regain, with opportunities for Black business owners in the future. “It was a thriving business district, and you didn’t have to go out of town to get the things you really needed,” McKee said. “We were a small town that supported one another.”