Former OU Law professor Anita Hill spoke at OU for the first time since 1999 for a gala in honor of “the mother of the Oklahoma Civil Rights Movement,” which the gala pamphlet called Clara Luper.
The Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies at OU held the Clara Luper Honors Gala at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History to honor the Oklahoma civil rights activist and OU alumna, along with those who stood with her.
As the Oklahoma City National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Youth Council Adviser in 1958, Luper organized a large-scale sit-in at a segregated drug store with 13 African American children and youths. Days after the sit-in, Luper and the 13 children succeeded in desegregating the drug store.
On Saturday, those of the 13 who were in attendance were recognized and honored for their work in the civil rights movement.
“When I saw the name Clara Luper associated with the African and African American Studies program, I knew I had to come,” Hill said. “And so I want to celebrate all of you who are here tonight, and especially the young people who she led in 1958. Not simply into those dark stores and lunch counters, but into American history.”
Hill, a native Oklahoman, became the first tenured African American professor at OU Law in 1989. She testified in 1991 against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for sexual harassment in the workplace during Senate judiciary committee hearings.
Hill said Luper should be remembered for her brilliance and brave advocacy in organizing the sit-in, along with her other civil rights movements.
Luper’s work was a large part of efforts for racial and gender equality, along with the legacies of people such as the first African American OU law student Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher and the first African American woman federal judge Constance Baker Motley, Hill said.
Shows and movies such as “Watchmen” and “Black Panther” portray fictional heroes tackling societal issues, Hill said, but Luper's story is about a real-life hero.
“We need somebody who can come in and take on the bigots, the nationalists, the bigots, wherever they are, whether they're in the streets, or in our highest offices,” Hill said. “We need someone to take them on. But perhaps, if we had the stories of women like Luper, Sipuel Fisher, Murray and Motley, if we centralize … the stories of our real life heroes, we would need fewer fictional heroes.”
