Oklahoma Sit-Ins: A Conversation with Clara Luper

In 1957, high school history teacher Clara Luper was given the opportunity to escape segregated Oklahoma by spending a few days in New York presenting "Brother President," a play she wrote about Martin Luther King. Luper and the group of students she brought with her were able to go about their day like everyone else and order sodas from non-segregated lunch counters. As their bus journeyed back through the Jim Crow South, Luper vowed to take on segregation and explained how she was going to do it in her book, Behold the Walls:

"I though about my father who had died in 1957 in the Veterans' Hospital and who had never been able to sit down and eat a meal in a decent restaurant. I remembered how he used to tell us that someday he would take us to dinner and to parks and zoos. And when I asked him when was someday, he would always say, "Someday will be real soon," as tears ran down his cheeks. So my answer was, "Yes, tonight is the night. History compels us to go, and let History alone be our final judge."

Shortly thereafter, Luper and 12 members of the NAACP Youth Council, ages six to 17, walked into the Katz Drug Store in downtown Oklahoma City and ordered 13 Coca-Colas. A typical response from Luper's fellow white customers was, "The nerve of the niggers trying to eat in our places. Who does Clara Luper think she is? She is nothing but a damned fool, the black thing." Thanks to patience and persistence, Katz, a major drug store, eventually desegregated the lunch counters in all of its 38 stores in Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas and Iowa.

That action led to similar sit-ins in Oklahoma City and across the South. Luper eventually became known as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement." Luper is well-known in Oklahoma, but isn't a household name nationwide. Today 82-year-old Luper speaks about her work to groups across the country and is involved with the NAACP, Miss Black Oklahoma and her church. I recently spoke with Clara at her home in Oklahoma City.


Tell me about the work you've been involved with in the past, specifically the sit-ins.

Well, first off, I'm black. I've known segregation as one of the worst experiences of a person's life. I was born in a segregated area. I went to a segregated school where we'd be reading sometimes on page four and the next page would be ten. I have had the experience of going to the back of the bus, not being able to go to libraries, public accommodations and what have you. I've always hated segregation with a passion. That's why I've been associated with the NAACP.