Clara Luper: Civil Rights Pioneer

Though a school teacher by profession and proud of it, Clara Luper courageously began early in her career a life-long battle against racism. She made local and national news in 1958 when she organized a small group of teenagers (including her own children) and led them in a sit-in an Oklahoma City drugstore diner which did not serve Black people. They were mocked and harassed and threatened, but they came back day after day until the store changed its policy. Other demonstrations and successes quickly followed.

In 1963, Luper and her children joined a bus load of Oklahoma people who participated in the gigantic March on Washington. They and thousands of others stood near the Lincoln Memorial and listened to Dr. Martin Luther King deliver his stirring speech titled, "I Have a Dream."

In 1965, Clara Luper also joined hundreds of other demonstrators for the historic and infamous march on Selma, Alabama to peacefully protest civil rights violations there. The demonstrators kept their part of the march peaceful, alright, but the police and racist bystanders attacked and beat many of the marchers and sic'd their police dogs on them.