Oklahoma Journeys

Week of August 15, 2009

Katz Lunch Counter Sit-In, 1958

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This week on Oklahoma Journeys we examine the beginnings of a new strategy for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s and how it got its start right here in Oklahoma. Clara Luper of Oklahoma City helped begin the sit-in protest that desegregated lunch counters, diners, and cafes around the country and developed a unique friendship in the process. It’s the beginning of a movement, this week on Oklahoma Journeys from the Oklahoma History Center.

From the Oklahoma History Center, this is Oklahoma Journeys. I’m Michael Dean.

Into the 20th Century Jim Crow laws existed in most states and cities dictating that blacks and whites were to have completely separate lives. Neighborhoods, businesses, schools, churches, theaters, even drinking fountains and bathrooms were segregated. For an African-American to cross any of these social boundaries might mean severe punishment and even death. It was in this week of 1958 that Clara Luper began a movement in Oklahoma City that shook the foundations of the country. As an African-American Luper felt the sting of prejudice and hatred; she also ran a local youth group of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The kids of Clara Luper’s youth group brought up the subject of restaurant and lunch counter segregation.

In the 1950s in Oklahoma and most southern states, blacks weren’t allowed to eat in most drug and department store lunch counters. They had to pay their money, get their orders to go, or eat in some out-of-the-way back room or alley. Clara Luper and her youth group children decided that they would make some changes in Oklahoma City. On August 19, 1958, Clara Luper led thirteen kids down to the Katz drugstore lunch counter in downtown Oklahoma City then moved on to the lunch counter at the John A. Brown store, the largest department store in downtown. After two weeks, the store gave in to their demands and began serving blacks.

But that is just part of the story. In 1964 Clara Luper and Mrs. John A. Brown became friends. That friendship began with a meeting in which Mrs. Brown asked Clara Luper why she hated her. Luper replied she didn’t hate her, she hated segregation. The friendship lasted through the spring of 1967. One morning Mrs. Brown called Clara Luiper and told her she was going to the hospital. She told Luper she was going to die, then asked her to please attend her funeral. Luper attended that funeral, and afterwards said that she and Mrs. Brown had gotten to knew each other and had talked about their different points of views and came to understand each other.

That was one of the consequences of the sit-ins at the lunch counters in downtown Oklahoma City in August 1958 that no one could have predicted. The eyes of the country were on Oklahoma during all of this and the strategy begun by Clara Luper in this week of 1958 was soon picked up and utilized by civil rights groups all over the country. The Oklahoma City sit-ins were the first by any NCAAP group, and they were successful, and they were non-violent.

You can see a re-creation of the Katz lunch counter in the African-American exhibit "Realizing the Dream" at the Oklahoma History Center, NE 23rd Street, just east of the state capitol in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma Journeys is a production of the Oklahoma History Center, dedicated to the collection, preservation, and sharing of our state’s past. I’m Michael Dean