Saturday, August 23, 2008

A civil rights Journey of 50 years; remembering and celebrating

Until I picked a copy of the paper edition of the City Sentinel this afternoon, it had somehow escaped my attention that this week marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the sit-ins that integrated downtown Oklahoma City. These sit-ins were carried out by the local NAACP youth group led by schoolteacher Clara Luper. The group had recently performed a play, written by Luper, at an NAACP convention in New York City, and this experience inspired them to fight segregation in their hometown upon their return.

The nation's first desegregation sit-ins had started in Wichita, Kansas about a week before the start of the Oklahoma City sit-ins. According to the NAACP, "The Dockum and Oklahoma City sit-ins are often overshadowed by the later sit-ins in Greensboro, N.C. and other places throughout the South but were just as groundbreaking."

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