In Celebration of Clara Luper Project
Clara Luper, the Mother of the Sit-In Movement, was the first person invited to join the Respect Diversity Speaker’s Bureau when RDF began in 2000. As she spoke about our history, she inspired thousands of students every year to take time to do acts of kindness and to be the best they can be.
Within our Speakers’ Bureau combines the talents of many members of the RDF Speaker’s Bureau in a special section of respectdiversity.org.
Our speakers include:
Janice Thacker Burdine, Artist/AuthorBruce T. Fisher, Civil Rights HistorianEric Humphries, Historical artist Hannibal Johnson, Esq, African American History Author Joan Korenblit, Author/Poetry Workshop Facilitator Michael Korenblit, Author/Historian Jahruba Lambeth, Music, African Drums, Storytelling, Movement Dr. Gwendolyn Fuller Mukes, Storyteller Dr. Gloria J. Pollard, Civil Rights and Diversity Advocate Dwe Williams, Theater Arts / StorytellerStan Evans, OU Law Center Assistant Dean, Diversity Advocate
For years we’ve had performing artists portraying Sojourner Truth, Bessie Coleman, Rosa Parks, Stagecoach Mary, Harriet Tubman among other well-known civil rights pioneers. We’ve now added presentations as Clara Luper by a few of our performing artists.
To schedule an RDF event, contact Joan Korenblit at 405/359-0369 or rdfrdf@cox.net.
A seed was planted over fifty years ago for the creation of the Respect Diversity Foundation.
Fifty four years ago at the age of six, I was sitting in our living room in Ponca City, OK with my parents, when I noticed something on each of their wrists; it was a KL in blue ink followed by numbers. Being an inquisitive little fellow, I asked them why those letters were on their wrists. My parents explained that they were both survivors of the Holocaust. For five and a half years, they had experienced the worst of hatred, bigotry, intolerance and violence. Except for one brother each, all of their immediate family and most of their extended family were killed by the Nazis. They survived, in large part, because of three Christians who risked their lives to save them, because they knew it was the right thing to do. These three Christians were murdered by the Nazis for saving Jews.
One year later, when I was seven, my dad saw a story on TV and read about it in the newspaper for the next few days. The following Saturday, on a hot August day, my parents drove me to a park. We got out of the car and walked over to two water fountains. One with a sign that said, Whites only. The other said Coloreds only.
Then my dad said, I want you to always remember what I’ve shown you here today, because this is why you do not have grandparents or lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, because people looked at them as being different –inferior. Whatever you do in life, we want you to promise us you will always stand up for what is right, always treat people with respect and be accepting and tolerant of others, no matter how different they may be from you.
The story that inspired my dad, to take me to the park and the bus station, was about Clara Luper and 13 young people sitting at Katz Drug Store; the beginning of the Sit-In Movement.
These are some quotable remarks from Clara Luper through the years.
After efforts in August 1958 to send only one or two blacks into Katz Drug Store to obtain food service failed, a group of black children filled most of the stools at Katz and stayed until 7 p.m. but were refused service. They came back the next day and were finally served food at 5 p.m. Luper said: We never want to go back again in such a large group. That was just a once-in-a-lifetime thing that we were forced into.
In August 1958, Luper led a group of black youths into John A. Brown. She expressed confidence that Oklahoma City businesses would accept blacks in the near future. The people are Christian people, and we love them. We're depending on Christians to come to our rescue — white and black. If Christianity fails, then we surrender.
After a minister participating in a civil rights drive was fatally beaten in Selma, Ala., a freedom march was planned in downtown Oklahoma City. Luper appealed for all groups — labor, religious, social, political — of every color and creed to participate. Many times, we have walked by ourselves; now we appeal to everybody. I want to be able to tell the people of Selma when I get there Monday that the people in Oklahoma City are walking together in peace and are praying for them.
In 1988, Luper referred to President John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, as a spark of hope in a very dark period of history. We saw in him the realization of the American dream. If a Catholic could make it, somebody as black as me could make it. It opened the door for a Jesse Jackson.
Upon her retirement from Oklahoma City Schools in 1989, Luper said: I learned from my white students; they learn from me. The beauty of America is in the diversity of her people. I've never been concerned whether the school officials opposed what I was doing or not. I was black before I was a schoolteacher, and I'm retiring black.
In a 1998 interview discussing the Katz Drug Store sit-ins: I knew I was right, because somewhere I read in the 14th Amendment, that I was a citizen and I had rights, and I had the right to eat. Within that hamburger was the whole essence of democracy. If you could deny me the right to eat, you could deny me the right to live or work where I want.
When Luper's civil rights efforts were honored in 2000 with a Clara Luper Day, she shared the honor: The name Clara Luper symbolizes all of the people who participated in the sit-in movement. ... This is the day these people dreamed of — and some of them aren't here any more — the day that we would be recognized. I have respect for them. I'll be thinking of all those people.
After Barack Obama was elected president, Luper explained why she wasn't surprised: I came from a family of believers. We believed in the sun when it didn't shine. We believed in the rain when it wasn't raining. My parents taught me to believe in a God I couldn't see.
After President Barack Obama finished taking the oath of office in 2009, Luper clapped and let out a cheer. I hadn't planned on dying until I saw this day. If I die now, I'm OK.
