Clara Luper & The Sit-In Movement

Clara Luper and 13 students stood up to the segregation by sitting down at a lunch counter.
Their heroic actions helped launch

The Nationwide Sit-in Movement

And it all started at an Oklahoma City drug store.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rosa Parks. Malcolm X. These are some of the names of African American Civil Rights leaders who became legends—names etched into the American psyche forever. But there is another name which belongs on our short list: Clara Luper.

During the height of “separate, but equal” facilities, Luper and 13 students stood up to segregation in Oklahoma City. And they did it through one of the most non-violent, but powerful methods of protest: The sit-in.

Two years before the famous Greensboro sit-in, there was Clara Luper and her students in Oklahoma City in 1958.

A Hero Born from Humble Beginnings

Clara Luper was born to Ezell and Isabell Shephard on May 3, 1923 in rural Okfuskee County. Growing up she attended all-Black schools, and was bussed daily for several miles to Grayson High School. Her graduating class, including Ms. Luper, was only five. She attended the segregated Langston University, graduating with her bachelor’s degree in 1944. She became the first African American of either gender admitted to the graduate history program at the University of Oklahoma, and graduated with her master’s degree in 1951.

She began a 41-year education career that included teaching history and public relations at Dunjee High School in Spencer Oklahoma, and at John Marshall and Classen High Schools in Oklahoma City. It was while teaching at Dunjee High School that Ms. Luper and her students made a decision that would change their lives — and American history.

Inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.

While at Dunjee High School, Ms. Luper wrote, directed, and produced Brother President: The Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1957, she escorted her students to New York City to perform the play for a national freedom rally. While there, the group noticed something they had never experienced before in Oklahoma; they were able to eat in whatever restaurant and stay in whatever hotel they wanted to. No questions asked.

That same year, Ms. Luper became the advisor for the Oklahoma City NAACP Youth Council. Both in her position, and as a teacher and mother, Ms. Luper began to sense the growing unrest and confusion among young Black people towards the injustices they took for granted in their everyday lives. Under Ms. Luper’s leadership, and inspired by the work of Martin Luther King, the group committed to highlighting injustice in their own city. Most importantly, they committed to doing so in a non-violent way. While some parents were understandably concerned with their children getting involved in controversial, potentially dangerous situations, they trusted Clara Luper would keep their kids safe.

The Sit-In at Katz Drug Store

On August 19, 1958, Ms. Luper and 13 kids with the Youth Council walked into the “whites only” Katz Drug Store, sat down on stools lining the counter, and asked to be served Cokes. There they waited until closing time. At one point, a white woman sat on a Black girl’s lap, while four white youths came in waving Confederate flags. Still they sat, quietly and peacefully. Clara Luper and the students were never served their Cokes, but three days later Katz’ corporate management in Kansas City, Missouri, desegregated stores in three states. That was only the beginning.

The group went from restaurant to restaurant, spreading across lunch counters, tables, and booths, reading magazines or coloring with crayons while they waited. Some restaurants immediately served them, others gave in after several days, while others called the police and had Ms. Luper arrested for trespassing.

The sit-in movement in Oklahoma City expanded to include cafeterias, churches, and amusement parks. It eventually grew to include marches, voter registration drives, and boycotts. During the six years the movement lasted, Ms. Luper was arrested 27 times. However, Ms. Luper’s Civil Rights work worked. Shortly before the landmark passage of the national 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Oklahoma City Council passed an ordinance ending racial discrimination.

Clara Luper’s Legacy

While Clara Luper’s sit-in in Oklahoma City was not the first, it was one of the most prolific. Two years later, the famous 1960 Greensboro sit-in launched a nationwide sit-in movement, which Ms. Luper and her students helped inspire two years earlier in Oklahoma City. Between 1960 and 1961, there were 70,000 Black and white participants across 20 states, leading to the desegregation of numerous businesses.

Beyond her work with Oklahoma City “sit-ins,” Ms. Luper also worked to desegregate Oklahoma City schools, organized the Oklahoma City Sanitation Strike in 1969, and founded the Freedom Center, Inc. She even ran for the United States Senate in 1972.

From 1960 to 1980, Clara Luper hosted her own radio show, published her memoir, Behold the Walls, in 1979, and developed Black Voices Magazine, which became America’s Voices. Throughout all her civil rights work, Ms. Luper continued to teach. Following her retirement from the classroom, she lectured on racial justice until 2008.

In 2007, Clara Luper was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, had a scholarship established in her name at Oklahoma City University, and had a street in Oklahoma City named in her honor, the Clara Luper Corridor. In 2009, she received the Rosa Parks Memorial Award from the National Education Association. These were just a few of the 154 honors she received for her life’s work. Ms. Luper died on June 8, 2011, and her casket lay in repose in the rotunda of the state capitol building, with flags flying at half-mast.

However, Clara Luper’s greatest honor was helping to launch a movement that changed not only a city, but a nation, ending decades of injustice that had kept Americans separate and unequal. And it all started at an Oklahoma City lunch counter.