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46 GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS | 2021– 2022 sales of housing, a mass coali- tion of whites and blacks was organized to plan a program to end such illegal practices. It began with a sit-in [at the Glen Cafe] in November 1946, and it took four years or more to end segregation and dis - crimination at Yellow Springs eating places. Sporadic efforts continued, but it wasn’t until the mid- 1960s that housing dis- crimination in Yellow Springs completely ended. In the meantime, efforts were made through the years to end segregation and discrimination wherever it occurred in the community including the two barbershops in town whose owners had refused to end their discrimi- natory practices. Throughout Ohio, including Greene County, judges and grand juries were failing to enforce the state law forbid- ding discrimination in “places of public accommodation” so in 1948 the Village Council of Yellow Springs passed a Vil- lage ordinance embodying the provisions of the state law, so that charges could be brought locally and trials held in the local Mayor’s Court. It was under this Village ordinance that the first of a series of lawsuits was filed, in 1959, against the lone barber then still refusing to cut the hair of Black people: The suit was filed only after a long series of meetings between Yellow Springs Mayor Leo Hughes and local barbers and beauticians was held to see if voluntary compliance with the law could be secured. Picketing of Gegner’s Barber Shop on Xenia Avenue began after opponents of seg - regation concluded that the law was moving too slowly. The barber had been found guilty of discrimination, but it took a year for the visit- ing Greene County Common Pleas Court judge to pass sentence. The barber’s attor - ney had successfully venued the case out of Yellow Springs Mayor’s Court. When the sentence was passed, and after urging from the governor of the state, the judge fined the barber $1. When the barber con- tinued to violate the law, Yellow Springs people filed complaints with the then-new Ohio Civil Rights Commis- sion. It ordered the barber to comply with the law. More delay. The barber appealed to the Greene County Common Pleas Court which ruled for the barber, declaring that the state’s public accommodations law was unconstitutional. On January 16, 1964, the state’s Second District Court of Appeals overturned the unconstitutional ruling but the barber still refused to cut black people’s hair. Picketing of the barber shop, which had been low- key and intermittent for some time, now began to occur daily, and on Satur- days there were often 20 or more persons walking on the picket line. Through February the numbers increased, and on Saturday, March 7, the Hundreds of local and area students, residents and law enforce - ment officials jammed downtown Yellow Springs on Xenia Avenue during a chaotic demonstration against Gegner’s Barber Shop on March 14, 1964. | PHOTO COURTESY OF ANT IOCHIANA, ANT IOCH COLLEGE Continued from page 45