OHIO BARBER SHOP SHUT IN PROTESTS

Students Object to Owner’s Refusal to Serve Negroes

XENIA, Ohio, March 15 (AP) Lewis Gegner announced today that he had closed his Yellow Springs barber shop indefinitely following mass demonstrations protesting his refusal to cut the hair of Negroes.

Mr. Gegner said he would take no further action until the Ohio Supreme Court acted on his appeal from an appellate court ruling that held that his refusal to cut Negroes’ hair violated the state’s public accommodation law.

In the meantime, he said, he intends to "find out what Antioch, Central State, and Wilberfore Colleges plan to do about students breaking the law.”

We was referring to a demonstration yesterday in front of his shop by students from the three schools. The protest resulted in 109 arrests. It came a day after a court order barring more than three pickets at one time at the shop and prohibiting mass demonstrations within 500 feet of the building.

Today, some 1,000 students from two of the schools circled the jail and courthouse for about an hour in reaction to yesterday’s clash with officers at the barbershop.

The students marched two-by-two around the two-block area, obeyed traffic signals and were silent. They then returned to their campuses.

Protest 'Police Brutality'

A spokesmand for the students of Wilberforce and Central State Colleges, predominantly Negro schools with campuses near here, said the march was “in protest of police brutality in what occurred in the village of Yellow Springs yesterday afternoon.”

“This is a demonstration by the students showing interest in human dignity,” he said.

Singing and shouting as the marchers paraded were the scores of students arrested yesterday and lodged in the Greene County Jail. They are charged with contempt of court.

Xenia is the county seat of Greene County. Wilberforce and Central State Colleges are four miles northeast of here and Antioch College and the barbershop are in Yellow Springs, eight miles to the north.

Antioch students also were involved in yesterday’s demonstration but did not give much support to today’s march.

Phillip Schaffer, the student community manager-elect, said some 150 Antioch students met with the dean of students this morning and voted “overwhelmingly against” demonstrations today because “they felt the students could cause more harm than good.”

2-Week Respite on Coast

SAN FRANCISCO, March 15 (AP) Negro leaders have promised San Francisco a two-week respite to solve the city’s civil rights problems or face the prospect of more demonstrations like those of the last 10 days.

Mayor Hon F. Shelley and officers of 15 civil rights groups announced yesterday a two-week civil disobedience moratorium soon after 110 pickets inside an auto agency were arrested.

The police estimate that 90 per cent of the demonstrators were white. Most were college students.