On 7 December 1955, Phillip Cooke, Samuel Murray, Elijah Herring, Joseph Studivent, Dr. George Simkins, Jr., and Leon Wolfe began the difficult process of integrating Greensboro's Gillespie Golf Course through an act of civil disobedience inspired by Rosa Parks's refusal days earlier to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus. Gillespie Park, a city-owned course operated as a private facility by white citizens who leased it for $1 annually, limited play to so-called members and their guests. The six men defied the attendant in the pro shop, each placed 75 cents on the counter, and teed up. On the fifth hole, the head pro, Mr. Edwards, threatened to have them arrested. After they finished 9 holes, they were arrested and charged with trespassing, which carried a sentence of 30 days in jail. Bail was posted, and the fight moved to the courts, where the case was eventually argued before the United States Supreme Court in October 1959. The six wanted Thurgood Marshall, then chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, to represent them, but he declined, saying they could have won with an injunction and predicting they would lose. Justice Tom C. Clark proved to be the key vote as they lost 5-4 in June 1960, with Chief Justice Earl Warren writing the dissent. North Carolina Governor Luther H. Hodges later commuted their sentences. Because of the related federal civil court decision in Simkins et al. v. City of Greensboro, Gillespie was to be integrated, but the day before that was to happen the clubhouse was torched, and the city council abandoned its involvement and sold the property containing 9 of the 18 holes. On 7 December 1962, a new city council reopened the 9 remaining holes of Gillespie Golf Course to all Greensboro residents.