'Bringing people together with love,' OKC marks centennial of freedom fighter Clara Luper

Opera singer Karen Slack didn't know who Clara Luper was when she was invited to embody the Oklahoma freedom fighter's spirit in an upcoming world-premiere performance.

But it didn't take much research for the Philadelphia soprano to feel honored by the chance to pay homage to Luper.

"Oftentimes, we don't know the women who were so important to the civil rights movement. ... We only learn about the men and their contributions, and women get lost in history," Slack told The Oklahoman. "So, I did not realize there was this amazing woman in Oklahoma ... who was a freedom fighter who was taking her children — her schoolchildren — to do nonviolent protests."

Slack will make her Sooner State debut May 13 with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, which is closing its 2022-2023 season at the Civic Center with a program titled "Oklahoma Stories: Clara Luper Centennial." The highlight of the concert will be the world premiere of composer Hannibal Lokumbe's "Trials, Tears, Transcendence: The Journey of Clara Luper," a new piece commissioned by the OKC Philharmonic "as a tribute to this extraordinary civil rights icon who made such a difference in the lives of so many Oklahomans," said the orchestra's music director, Alexander Mickelthwate.

The concert is just one of the events planned in OKC to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Luper's birth.

"If my mother had lived (to 100), she would want people to know that she loved them, and the young people she worked with — the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of kids that she taught over 40 years — that she respected them. She'd just want them to know that she had their backs," Marilyn Luper Hildreth, Luper's older daughter, told The Oklahoman.

"Her greatest dream as an educator and as a parent was, she would tell us all the time, 'I want you to go places that I've never been, and I want you to dream dreams that I've never had.'"

Who was Clara Luper and what did she accomplish?

Born May 3, 1923, in Okfuskee County, Luper is best remembered for leading the 1958 Oklahoma City sit-in, which will have its 65th anniversary in August.

A 1944 Langston University graduate, Luper became in 1950 the first Black student to enroll in the history department at the University of Oklahoma, where she earned a master's degree.

She taught American history for 41 years, starting at Dunjee High School and later at other OKC schools. In 1989, Luper retired from John Marshall High School after 19 years there.

In the 1950s, Luper helped establish the local NAACP Youth Council and served as its adviser for 50 years. She participated in several marches with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and "Brother President," the 1957 play Luper wrote about King, became the catalyst for the OKC sit-in.

Herbert Wright, a national NAACP leader, invited Luper to come with her youth group to New York City to perform the play. As they traveled north to NYC, the children ate and stayed at eateries and hotels that were unsegregated for the first time.

"It was a taste of freedom," Hildreth said.

'My mother would be joyous,' says Clara Luper's daughter at sit-in monument announcement

Where and when were the first OKC sit-ins?

On Aug, 19, 1958, Luper and 13 of her students — including her two older children, Calvin and Marilyn — walked into the then-segregated Katz Drug Store in downtown OKC and ordered Cokes at the lunch counter, initiating one of the first civil rights protests of its kind in the country. It took place two years before the famous sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina.

"Calvin thought I had lost my mind when I made that motion that we go down to Katz Drug Store and sit. He said, 'You don't know what these people gonna do to us.' I remember it like it was yesterday — and I didn't," Hildreth recalled with a chuckle, adding that the sit-in happened before her younger sister, Chelle Luper Wilson, was born.

Although white customers cursed them, threatened them and bumped them, Luper and the youngsters sat peacefully for hours. They kept coming back, and on the third day, the staff relented and served them, ending the OKC lunch counter's segregation policy.

More: How sit-ins, civil rights icon mother Clara Luper influenced Marilyn Hildreth's own activism

Luper and the group launched more sit-ins at John A. Brown's luncheonette, the Skirvin Hotel, Wedgewood Amusement Park and more.

"The Civil Rights Movement was based on passive, nonviolent resistance. Turn the other cheek, love thy neighbor as thyself — as old as the Bible itself," said Hildreth, now part of the Clara Luper Legacy Committee.

"My mother was a genius herself. I think she was born way before her time: God had in mind for her to do the things that she's done — and made a way for it to happen."

Luper, who died in 2011 at age 88, was arrested 26 times during her civil rights activities and is considered a major leader in the fight to end segregation in Oklahoma.

How has Clara Luper been memorialized in Oklahoma?

When David Holt took office as OKC mayor in 2018, he said he was surprised by how many people seemed to have forgotten about Luper and the local sit-ins.

"It happened to be just a few months before the 60th anniversary of the sit-ins, and I was just so struck at how little people here knew about the sit-in movement — and especially the fact that it was one of the very first sit-ins," Holt told The Oklahoman.

"No surprise, if we're not talking about it, nobody else was (going to), either,"

In 2000, State Highway 107, also known as NE 23, from Interstate 235 to Interstate 35, was designated the Clara Luper Corridor, and in 2003, the first cohort of Clara Luper Scholarship recipients started at Oklahoma City University. But Holt noticed not much had been done since Luper's death to honor her work.

Maestro Mickelthwate: Clara Luper tribute to honor OKC civil rights movement

"I really went all in on that 60th anniversary. ... Of course, there was already a bunch of events being planned during that time in August of 2018, and so I participated in all of those, which no mayor had ever gone to those events before," said Holt, a member of the Osage Nation and the first OKC mayor of Native American heritage.

"We've come a long way in a relatively short amount of time in terms of appreciating our civil rights history and appreciating icons like Clara Luper. I think it really speaks to our greater goals of incorporating everybody into our city story."

In 2018, the OU Board of Regents named its Department of African and African American Studies for Luper, and later that year, the OKC Public Schools Board of Education dubbed the district’s new administration building the Clara Luper Center for Educational Services. The Clara Luper History Nook there was unveiled in 2021, the same year the downtown OKC post office was renamed the Clara Luper Post Office Building.

When the MAPS 4 sales tax package was overwhelmingly approved in 2019, it included $26.8 million to build and operate the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center, due to open in 2026. Efforts to revive the Freedom Center, the historic home of the local civil rights movement, also were initially included in MAPS 4, but that project is now being privately funded.

Another privately funded commemoration: Set for completion in 2024, the Clara Luper Sit-in Plaza at Robinson Avenue and Main Street will feature a $3.6 million life-size bronze monument portraying the 1958 sit-in.

"Historically, in this community, we'll allow there to be named things for people of color, or champions of the civil rights movement, but only in northeast Oklahoma City," Holt said. "But we needed to commemorate the sit-in movement, and we needed to do it where it happened. We needed to do it in the heart of downtown, where people would be exposed to it — people of all races from all parts of the city."

What events are planned for the Clara Luper centennial?

OKC sculptor LaQuincey Reed not only is working on the life-size Luper sculpture for the sit-in monument, but he also recently completed a new bust of her for the state Capitol. Ahead of Luper's May 3 birthday, the bust was installed April 25 on the first floor. A mural of the 1958 sit-in also is envisioned for the Capitol.

On July 25, OU Press will release a new commemorative edition of Luper's 1979 autobiography "Behold the Walls," edited by Karlos Hill, Regents' Professor for OU's Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies, and Bob Blackburn, retired executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

The Oklahoma History Center will host a Clara Luper Birthday Celebration from 6 to 8 p.m. May 1, with Hildreth and other members of the Clara Luper Legacy Committee participating in a discussion facilitated by Hill. Admission is free, but registration is required.

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"What really sets Clara Luper apart is, when you listen to her interviews, when you hear her speak, there was no vitriol. There was no bitterness. There was no hatred. There was no anger. She came at it with a sense of love and a sense of 'The society that we have, we're not living up to our ideals, and we're going to do something about it. And we're going to love those people that are on the other side of us,'" said state Historical Society Executive Director Trait Thompson.

"I think that's incredible, especially in a day and age where, gosh, we're so quick to ... cast away other people because of their beliefs."

The Clara Luper Legacy Committee will celebrate her centennial from 9 to 11 a.m. May 3 at the state Capitol by hosting Unity in the Community.

"Ms. Marilyn had the idea for her mom's birthday to create a type of celebration that would bring everybody from all walks of life — all nations, all backgrounds, all cultures — together," said OKC rapper, activist and legacy committee member Jabee Williams, who's also touring local churches with the OKC Philharmonic to perform a new collaborative tribute to Luper.

"We do an event every year to celebrate the anniversary of the sit-in, but we wanted to make her birthday — especially with it being her 100th birthday — as big as we could and really help to share Ms. Clara Luper's philosophy, which was bringing people together with love."

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How will the OKC Philharmonic's world premiere honor the icon?

At its May 13 concert, the OKC Philharmonic will perform Joan Tower's "Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman" and Leonard Bernstein's "Symphonic Dances from West Side Story," along with the world premiere of Lokumbe's new piece in Luper's honor. The latter will feature Hildreth performing readings onstage alongside the orchestra and Slack, the opera singer who will be portraying her mother's spirit.

"The young man, Hannibal, who wrote the musical score, is a genius. ... When you hear the feeling and the words of what he's put together, it just brings chills to my body," said Hildreth, who met the composer last year. 

"It thrills my heart and my soul, because I read this over and over again. And the more I read it, the more involved I get in it. ... I can feel her heart and her soul. And I think that she would be happy."

More: OKC Philharmonic, Jabee Williams kick off tour at OKC church home of Clara Luper

For Slack, the opportunity to reunite with Lokumbe after working with him several times before first motivated her to take the role. Learning about Luper has assured her that her OKC debut will be unforgettable.

"Nothing beats the excitement of a world premiere ... and with Hannibal, I always feel so changed coming into his works. At the end, I just always feel so different (in) the way I make music, the way I think about the world," Slack said.

"In this piece, I am the spirit of Clara ... this incredible woman who was teaching and educating but also encouraging her students to fight for their freedom. ... I just did not know she existed — but now I do."

More: OKC Philharmonic commissioning new music to celebrate civil rights icon Clara Luper

Clara Luper 100th Birthday Celebration

When: 6 to 8 p.m. May 1.

Where: Oklahoma History Center, 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive.

Admission: Free but registration is required.

To register: https://www.okhistory.org/calendar/event/clara-luper-100th-birthday-celebration.

Unity in the Community

When: 9 to 11 a.m. May 3.

Where: State Capitol, 2300 N Lincoln Blvd.

Admission: Free.

Information: https://www.claraluperlegacy.com.

OKC Philharmonic's 'Oklahoma Stories: Clara Luper Centennial'

When: 8 p.m. May 13.

Where: Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N Walker.

Admission: Adult tickets range from $27 to $94.

Tickets: https://www.okcphil.org.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC celebrating civil rights icon Clara Luper's 100th birthday