The Enduring Legacy of Clara Luper

Clara Luper addresses a crowd.

Oklahoma icon, Clara Shepard Luper was born in Okfuskee County in 1923. After earing her bachelor's, she was the first Black person to be admitted into the graduate History program at the University of Oklahoma and graduated in 1951. In 1958, she pioneered and led one of the very first sit-ins at Katz Drug Store in downtown Oklahoma City. Always a teacher first, Luper and her students organized and worked tirelessly to end segregation through nonviolence at hundreds of restaurants, cafes, theatres, hotels, and even churches. She also led campaigns on equal banking rights, open housing, and voting rights. She became a giant in the Civil Rights Movement.

10 years later in 1968, she was one of few Black teachers chosen to teach at OKC's newly desegregated public high school, Northwest Classen, and later John Marshall High.While continuing to engage in civic activism, Mrs. Luper raised children, hosted her own radio show, wrote a book, ran for the US Senate, advised the NAACP Youth Council, and continued to teach American History in and around Oklahoma City for 41 years becoming a champion of the OKC Public School District and public education in general. Though she died in 2011, her legacy is cemented in several buildings, streets, departments, and in the future, the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center in OKC, as well as in the lives of all of her students.

Here at OCU, we are privileged to be the stewards of The Clara Luper Scholarship that provides a full tuition waiver, room and board, and membership into the President's Leadership Class to deserving students from diverse backgrounds who may otherwise not be able to afford a private university education. We honor Mrs. Luper's legacy in its faith-based mission, values, small class size, and an emphasis on community engagement and service.

The Mother, The Giant created by former Clara Luper Scholar Leondre Lattimore (Class of 2020) that hangs permanently in the University Center Shdeed Lounge.

Completed in 2019, the Clara Luper Center for Educational Services houses the administrative staff and hosts outreach programs for OKC Public Schools.