Gegner’s Barbershop

You wouldn’t think of it in modern Yellow Springs, but like most towns and cities in the United States during the 1960s, the village faced racially charged protest to which the military was forced to get involved. In 1960, Paul Graham, an African American resident of Yellow Springs who went Lewis Gegner’s barbershop for a haircut, but Gegner simply said he didn’t know how to cut their hair and refused to provide services to African Americans. Mr. Graham filed a complaint against Lewis and his business for discrimination case with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission that made its way to the Ohio Supreme Court.

The case was eventually dropped a year and a half later, which sparked outrage in the community of Yellow Springs, causing many locals and students from Antioch College, Central State University, and Wilberforce University to picket and protest the barbershop. A massive protest occurred when two African-American students, Jim Fearn, and Hank Richardson asked to have their haircut, but when they were refused, a protest of 30 students erupted in the shop, all of them demanding haircuts. Gegner tried to the protesters by raising the chairs so no one could reach them, but them that didn’t stop Gegner resorted to calling the police. This led to 18 students being arrested and others being attacked with a fire hose. This didn’t end the protest; more occurred in the coming days which even involved members of my family. My grandmother, Joyce Robinson; an immigrant from Liverpool, England who had six mixed raced kids with my grandfather, Joe Robinson, an African American airman joined in protesting the barber shop. During the protest, the National Guard was called and attacked the protesters with tear gas into the crowd of men, women, and children alike.

Eventually, the shop couldn’t survive with more lawsuits and protest and had to close their doors for good. Gegner would later say, “I was doing what I thought I had a right to do. Everyone was a screaming civil right. What about my civil rights.” Let that one sink in; he believed that it was his civil right to discriminate others based on the color of their skin.

Heaton, Lauren. "Massive Desegregation Demonstrations Rocked Town." Website.  https://www.ysnews.com/old/stories/2003/october/101603_history.html