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GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS  |  2020 – 2021 89 was fined $1 for violating a Village anti-discrimination ordinance. But Graham then filed a complaint against Gegner’s discriminatory practices with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, which issued a cease-and-desist order. Gegner appealed to the Greene County Court of Appeals and won, but Graham won at the district level, and the case was set to come before the Ohio Supreme Court in the first test of Ohio’s anti- discrimination ordinance since it was passed in 1878. But community members and some Antioch students (specifically the Antioch Committee for Racial Equal - ity), were growing increas- ingly frustrated. So in April 1963, they protested. It began simply, with two students picketing in front of the shop and handing out fliers. Meanwhile, African American students contin - ued to enter the barbershop and ask for haircuts. Gegner refused them. This continued into 1964. 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 picketing in large numbers, the activists would have to disobey the law. A large action was planned for Saturday, March 14, 1964. Two-hundred citizens marched into Xenia Avenue, locked arms and formed a barrier 10 people deep in front of Gegner’s shop. Over 150 law enforcement officials from three counties used tear gas and fire hoses to disperse the demonstra- tors. By 4 p.m., Montgomery County police read the Ohio Riot Act and a line of offi - cers, with their nightsticks, descended on the crowd. A local resident encouraged the group to disperse, but 108 people were arrested. While the day was chaotic, it is an important part of our village’s history. Almost immediately after the pro - test, various groups began to sit down and have frank discussions of how to move forward. After a solidarity march, Antioch and the Vil - lage held public discussions and the Human Relations Committee organized efforts to address the issues of equal rights, fair employ- ment, integrated housing and other issues. Three months after the demonstration, the 1964 Civil Rights Act became the first federal law requir - ing all businesses to serve the public regardless of race. Gegner’s shop never reopened. He sold his busi- ness in July 1964 and later moved away from the village. First library Now Yellow Springs Hardware The DeNormandie Build- ing, named after its owner Elizabeth DeNormandie, was built around 1870. In 1880, DeNormandie ran a 99-cent store in the building and lived in the brick home next door. In 1899, the women of the Social Culture Club were trying to encourage the young people of Yellow Springs to read. The Social Culture Club decided that Yellow Springs needed a library, but there seemed to be no place to put one. The club rented a room in the corner of the first floor of this building. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union provided furniture in exchange for use of the room for its bimonthly meetings. The Social Culture Club began filling the shelves of the reading room. They did this by going door-to-door throughout the village asking for magazines for their new reading room. When the room finally opened to the public, everyone who attended the opening was required to bring a book that would become a part of the permanent collection. By March 31, 1899, the library’s collection contained approxi - mately 77 volumes, along with a few old magazines and newspapers. By 1906, the library had outgrown its one room and moved to the upper floors of the building. As for the DeNormandie family home next door, that building later became a hotel, and is now a toy shop, Yellow Springs Toy Company. The hotel, the Comfort Inn (not to be confused with the chain of the same name), was owned by Zella Carper and operated from 1915 to 1950. Antioch Bookplate Co. Now Jennifer’s Touch/ Bonadies/Toxic Beauty Antioch Bookplate Com - pany was started as a co-op by two Antioch students and grew to an international PHOTO: YS NEWS ARCHIVE Police attempted to remove a protester in front of the Gegner Barbershop in 1964. Demonstrations against the local barber, who refused to cut the hair of Black people, escalated until a dramatic confrontation between 200 protesters and 150 area law enforcement on March 14, 1964. PHOTO FROM THE 1956 BOOK, “WHY THEY CAME” The building at 220 Xenia Ave. was the longtime home of the Antioch Bookplate Company, founded by Ernest Morgan, as well as the Yellow Springs News, which was published by Ernest and his wife Elizabeth during the 1940s.