The main lobby of the Oklahoma History Center was filled to capacity Tuesday as civil rights activists from throughout the country gathered to praise the leader of the sit-in movement launched in Oklahoma City 50 years ago.Clara Luper, the woman who taught American history and ended up making history herself and who has been described as “the mother of the sit-in movement,” said she was humbled by all the festivities.
“I felt like a million dollars,” Mrs. Luper said to a reporter from her wheelchair. “I never thought this would happen in Oklahoma.”
Mrs. Luper was inducted last year into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.
Speakers ranged anywhere from the lieutenant governor to representatives from the national office of the civil rights organization with which Mrs. Luper worked to start the efforts that led to significant desegregation advances.
“Your sacrifices made it possible so that I would not have to grow up with these images of segregation,” Lieut. Gov. Jari Askins told Mrs. Luper and others who were involved in the Oklahoma City efforts.
“I am grateful that, with each generation that’s in the state of Oklahoma,” she continued, “we come closer to eliminating those barriers.”
Mayor Mick Cornett was another of the speakers.
Last week, the City Council and the mayor adopted a resolution commending Mrs. Luper and the young people and others who participated in the 1958 Oklahoma City sit-in demonstrations.
Mrs. Luper, long a leader of the local Youth Council of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, recruited 13 members of that group to begin the sit-in demonstration at the downtown Katz Drug Store.
The demonstration were expanded and lasted for four years, and lay the groundwork for other similar demonstrations throughout the South.
The Luper-led effort was really the beginning of ventures that resulted in the court rulings against segregation, as well as the adoption of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Students from Oklahoma City University attended the event as representatives of the 130 students who have become Luper Scholars at the school.
