W E E K E N D E D I T I O N | N O V E M B E R 2 9 - D E C E M B E R 2 , 2 0 18 | T W I C E W E E K LY I N P R I N T | O U D A I LY. C O M
OU DAILY Clara Luper, civil rights activist, pictured in 1988. Luper was an integral part of the civil rights movement in Oklahoma during the 1950s and 60s.
PROVIDED BY THE OKLAHOMAN
LEADING THE WAY How Clara Luper organized the nation’s first sit-in and left a legacy as a leader in Oklahoma
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e was instructed to sit still no matter what. If someone spit or cursed or got in his face, he should not react. Suddenly, they came in yelling: “You better get off that seat, boy.” J.D. Baker was about to get into a fight with a heckler when he remembered — it was only a simulation. The former OU student body president and other students w e re i n a n Int ro d u c t i o n t o African and African-American Studies class when asked to participate in a re-enactment of the 1958 Oklahoma City sit-in. “It was so tough, it was so tough in that setting,” Baker said. “So I can only imagine.” Replace the chalkboard and supervising professor with a diner counter and police officers, and the scene that day in the classroom was just like the one 60 years prior at Katz Drug Store on Main and Robinson streets in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City. T h e c o u n t r y ’s f i r s t s i t- i n movement was spearheaded not by college students in North Carolina, but rather by schoolteacher Clara Luper, who, along with hundreds of members of the NAACP Youth Council, integrated restaurants across Oklahoma City one by one in the face of resistance and continual arrests. In March, the state’s flagship university took its first step toward honoring its own civil rights icon, who was also one of OU’s first black graduates, by naming its African and AfricanAmerican Studies department after her. Classes like the one Baker was in are intended to exemplify excellence in research, teaching and service — goals Luper embodied and passed on to those whose lives she touched. “ Th e re i s n o o n e a l i v e o r passed away,” said Karlos Hill, the department’s chair, “that better suits what we’re about than Clara Luper.” FIRST OF ITS KIND Stanley Evans sat slouched on a diner seat, gazing at the spot on the counter in front of him where there should have been a
ANNA BAUMAN • @ANNABAUMAN2 hamburger and fries. The 11-year-old, along with three other children, was waiting. Waiting for the white servers behind the counter at Katz Drug Store to fulfill the promise of equal rights promised by America’s forefathers in the Constitution. Evans, now 71, remembers the striped shirt he wore that day. He remembers the haircut and the “big ugly” glasses he says made him look like the nerd he was. What he doesn’t remember is sitting on that stool, or anyone taking the photo that would become one of the most iconic images of an event that would inspire black college students in North Carolina to ask for coffee at an all-white lunch counter two years later and launch a nationwide movement that helped end Jim Crow policies of segregation. “We didn’t see that we were making history,” said Evans, former OU Law dean of students. “We just saw that we were fixing a problem that was a problem for us — we thought we should be able to eat anywhere we wanted to.”
The sit-in idea was sparked by Luper’s 8-year-old daughter, Marilyn, after a trip to New York City for an NAACP convention opened her eyes to how life could be. The group was able to eat in restaurants and stay in hotels without any questions asked.
“We didn’t see that we were making history. We just saw that we were fixing a problem that was a problem for us — we thought we should be able to eat anywhere we wanted to.” STANLEY EVANS, FORMER OU LAW DEAN OF STUDENTS
“They came back to Oklahoma where they couldn’t go and eat in a restaurant, they couldn’t order a hamburger and a Coke, they couldn’t stay in a hotel, they had to stay outside,” Evans
said. “The bathrooms in the South had ‘white’ or ‘colored’ — so they were forced back into the Jim Crow rules.” Evans, who lived down the street from the Lupers, was in their yard one day after the New York trip when the elementary school kids were discussing the issue. Marilyn said she did not understand. She didn’t like the situation, and she wanted to fix it. “So Ms. Luper said, ‘OK, if you guys are really serious about this, we’re going to do it — but we’re going to do it right. We’re going to be organized, and we’re going to do it in a nonviolent way,’” Evans recalls. “And that was the start of the sit-in movement in 1958.” Luper, who taught at Dunjee High School east of Oklahoma City, had the key element of trust on her side. Parents of the children involved in the project knew the beloved history teacher would keep their children safe. Such was the case for Evans, whose parents were leery of his involvement in a controversial movement in the overwhelmingly white Oklahoma City, but permitted it anyway.
On Aug. 19, 1958, Luper and 13 kids walked into Katz Drug Store, sat down on stools lining the counter and asked to be served. They waited quietly until closing time, even after a white woman sat on the lap of a black girl and four white youths came in waving Confederate flags. Two days later, Katz corporate management in Kansas City, Missouri, desegregated its lunch counters in three states. In s p i re d by t hat s u c c e s s, the group worked its way from restaurant to restaurant, following the same strategy. They spread out across lunch counters, tables and booths, quietly reading magazines or coloring with crayons until they were served. Some places saw them coming and immediately gave in. Some caved after several days. “So we’d go to Greens, we’d sit in there for three or four days,” Evans said. “Then we’d go to the next restaurant, do the same thing all over again.” Others refused to serve black people for years, calling the police to arrest the group for trespassing each time they arrived. Luper herself was arrested 27 times during the movement, which lasted six years. “The thing for us was,” Evans said, “it was about changing a situation that bothered us.” LUPER AS A TEACHER Sitting in his office at OU College of Law where the sitin photo rests in the corner on its own stand, Evans laughs as he offers one word to describe Luper — mean. He recalls Luper once calling to say she wanted him to fill in on her radio show the next day. The then-recently retired Army colonel had never before been on the radio, but that didn’t matter. Luper hung up before he could protest any more. “If you understand anything about Ms. Luper, anybody that knows her will tell you that if Ms. Luper wants you to do something, there is no such thing as answering no,” Evans said. “She will not accept no for an answer.”
PROVIDED BY JOHN MELTON COLLECTION, OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Former OU Law dean of students Stanley Evans at the sit-in at Katz Drug Store in Oklahoma City Aug. 19, 1958.
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