Chapter 14 | Section 3
Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education and Desegregation of Public Schools
Even as Oklahomans connected to more conservative religious and political traditions, the legacy of civil rights activism, laws, and court decisions continued to unfold. It is important to remember that prior to the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Oklahoma schools had been segregated by race. As we discussed in previous chapters, desegregation did not happen overnight. It was a slow process. There were those who opposed it. There were also logistical challenges in terms of how to actually carry out school integration.
What is the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education and desegregation in Oklahoma? Long-term housing and school enrollment patterns emerged in response to integration efforts.
School Desegregation in Tulsa
Following the Brown decision, Tulsa Public Schools shifted to a neighborhood school concept or attendance zones, with students attending school in their neighborhood or zone. However, the school board allowed students to transfer from a school if they were considered to be in the minority based on race.
In 1957, for example, the same year as the “Little Rock Nine” integration of Central High School, an all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, five Black students in Tulsa enrolled at Old Central High School, an all-white high school. In Little Rock, as we learned in chapter 11, nine Black students were met with white mobs protesting the integration of a white high school, and National Guard troops were called in to protect the Black students as they moved from class to class throughout the school day. In contrast, the five Black students at Old Central in Tulsa recalled being welcomed and feeling accepted at the school. Some ten years later, Black students represented about 10 percent of the total student body of 2,500 students at Old Central.
In the early 1970s Booker T. Washington, a historically Black high school in historically Black north Tulsa, became a magnet school actively seeking Black and white honors students to apply for admission. During the following first three years, Booker T. Washington had approximately 600 Black students and 600 white students.
Government decisions concerning education had long-term consequences for students. For example, Darrell Christopher attended Monroe High School in Tulsa at the time and recalled racist teachers not wanting Black and white students to interact. Many of the best teachers at Monroe and elsewhere had been transferred to Booker T. Washington as the magnet school for honors students. Darrell won a speech contest and was recruited by both Booker T. Washington and Holland Hall, a private school, with the offer of an academic scholarship. He chose Holland Hall instead of Booker T. Washington, and the experience changed his life. Darrell Christopher was the tenth Black student to graduate from Holland Hall.
Desegregation and Busing in Oklahoma City
In Oklahoma, court-ordered school busing for public school integration purposes was adopted only in Oklahoma City. Through a series of federal court cases known as Dowell v. Oklahoma City (originally filed in 1961), the Oklahoma City Public School District was ordered to adopt a plan of integration. The order was based on a finding made by US district judge Luther L. Bohanon on July 11, 1963, that the Oklahoma City Public School District was operating a dual-school system in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. In 1972, the court ordered the Oklahoma City Public School District to develop desegregation plans so that individual school student populations would reflect the overall minority student population in the district. Judge Bohanon ordered the school district to develop a plan for cross-district busing of students.
Oklahoma City optometrist Dr. Alfonzo L. Dowell and his son, Robert. In 1961, Dr. Dowell sued the Oklahoma City Public School District for refusing to admit Robert to the all-white Northeast High School. In the case known as Dowell v. Oklahoma City (1963), the District Court found that the Oklahoma City Public School District was operating a segregated dual-school system in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
When forced integration and crosstown busing were required by court order, many white families joined the larger national movement of “white flight”, or an intentional move from cities to suburbs. In Oklahoma City white families moved north to the suburb of Edmond. During the 1970s, Edmond became one of the fastest growing cities in Oklahoma. Edmond’s population more than doubled from 16,600 in 1970 to 34,000 by 1979. Suburban school districts outside of Tulsa such as Bixby, Broken Arrow, Jenks and Owasso also experienced significant enrollment growth.
The Oklahoma City Public School District remained under court order until 1991. After that, the Oklahoma City School District became one of the first in the nation to return to neighborhood schools after years of court-ordered cross-district school busing.
Oklahoma City’s Asian District
The Vietnam War ended in 1975 when US troops left the region and the city of Saigon fell under communist rule. As many as 1.5 million refugees from Southeast Asia, namely Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, fled the region and resettled throughout the world. The United States was one of the primary destinations for Vietnamese refugees. The US military established resettlement camps for these refugees on military bases throughout the country, including Fort Chaffee near Fort Smith, Arkansas. From these camps, many Vietnamese families resettled in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Wichita, Kansas, with the support and sponsorship of Catholic and Protestant charities. The Vietnamese American Association (VAA), a civic organization, was established in Oklahoma in 1978. The VAA to this day offers services including English classes, job training, and job placement.
Loc Le fled Vietnam in a fishing boat with some thirty family and friends in 1975 and made his home in Oklahoma City when an aunt and uncle sponsored the family. In 1980 he purchased a café called Jimmy’s Egg at NW 16th and May in Oklahoma City. Over time Loc Le was able to expand his business while at the same time making significant contributions to his community.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
The Oklahoma History Center proudly displays an original Jimmy’s Egg sign in its “Crossroads of Commerce” exhibit.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Co Nguyen arrived in Oklahoma City in 1976 when she was nineteen. Her family had escaped Vietnam on a fishing boat. They joined a small but growing Vietnamese community in the city. Nguyen married and raised six children. Her family attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church. Due to the growing Vietnamese community, the church added a Vietnamese-language service.
Vietnamese refugees helped build the Asian District along NW 23rd Street and Classen Boulevard in Oklahoma City. Businesses in this district include Super Cao Nguyen, the largest international supermarket in Oklahoma. The Asian District also offers coffee shops and restaurants. In 2005, the city council designated the Asian District as an official district. Annual events include the Asian Night Market Festival in the summer and the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival in the fall.
Latinx Settlement in Oklahoma
In the late 1960s and early 1970s public schools in south Oklahoma City experienced an increase in Latinx student enrollment for a variety of reasons including changes in immigration policy. As a result, the school district needed to hire Spanish-speaking teachers. In 1982, the US Supreme Court decided in Plyler v. Doe that states could not constitutionally deny students a free public education on account of their immigration status. In Oklahoma, this meant that public schools were required to allow undocumented immigrant students to enroll in the school district where they lived. The Latinx population of Oklahoma City in communities such as Capitol Hill and the Riverside District increased from 7,265 in 1980 to over 51,000 in 2000.
In Tulsa, the largest increase in the Latinx population began in the 1970s in east Tulsa and in the Kendall-Whittier District just north of the University of Tulsa. By 1999, 2,700 Latinx students attended Tulsa area schools. Population growth accelerated again in the 1980s and 1990s due to federal immigration reforms. In 1980, for example, the Latinx population of Tulsa was 4,322, and by 2000 the population grew to 28,111. Many of the newcomers migrated to Oklahoma from Texas, California, Mexico, and Cuba.
By 1999, the Kendall-Whittier area of Tulsa was 35 percent Hispanic. In the early 1990s, the primarily white and Black parish of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church merged with the mostly Spanish parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Initially the two congregations worshiped separately, but they came together over time. On Sundays, St. Francis now offers five masses in Spanish, one mass in English, and one mass in American Sign Language. Today Our Lady of Guadalupe serves as a Latinx cultural center.
In Tulsa, Margarita and Francisco Treviño operate the newspaper Hispano de Tulsa (published in Spanish and English) and the Clear Channel radio station, the first twenty-four-hour-a-day Spanish radio station. In baseball, Latinx players Keith Hernandez, Sammy Sosa, Ivan Rodriguez, and Carlos Peña played for the Double-A Tulsa Drillers. The Greater Tulsa Hispanic Affairs Commission, Hispanic American Foundation, and the Greater Tulsa Hispanic Chamber all contribute to Latinx culture in Tulsa.
Key Latinx civic organizations were founded in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974, Dr. Edward Esperanza founded the Mexican-American Cultural Center, later renamed the Hispanic Cultural Center in 1980, to reflect the diversity of Spanish speakers who attended English language courses and other activities. In 1979, Alfonso Macias organized councils of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in the state. LULAC Oklahoma offers voter education, youth leadership, and scholarship opportunities to Latinx communities.
Alfonso Macias (right) with LULAC scholarship winners Dennis Alfaro and Dannette Romero in 1983. Founded in 1929, LULAC promotes civil rights for Latin Americans through voter education, youth leadership, and scholarship programs.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
In the Oklahoma Panhandle, specifically Guymon, the Latinx population has transformed the region, as we will learn in more detail in Chapter 15. About 150 Latinx lived in the Oklahoma Panhandle in 1900. By the 1960s and 1970s increased agriculture and cattle feedlots attracted Latinx workers to the area. Hitch Ranch’s cattle feedlots and then Swift and Company meatpacking plant opened, followed by the computer service Diversified Data Incorporated. By the 1980s, over 10 percent of Guymon’s population was Latinx.
When the Swift meatpacking facility closed in 1987, Guymon experienced a population decline. Perhaps corporate hog farming was the answer? Local leaders and community members taxed themselves to gain funding to recruit Seaboard Farms to the area. Seaboard bought the old Swift plant in Guymon and opened a pork-processing facility in late 1995 with 2,500 jobs. Latinx filled the majority of the positions. By 2007 Seaboard employed 4,300 people: 2,300 at the plant and 2,000 on area hog farms.
Another result of Latinx settlement was the rise in Latinx businesses. For example, the Mexican Seafood and Taco Shop started as a food truck after Seaboard arrived in Guymon, and the truck was a success. Then the owner bought a gas station and converted it to a restaurant. Bilingual servers were hired and bilingual menus provided to customers. Guymon residents came from all over the world: Mexico, Guatemala, Burma, Sudan, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cuba, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Venezuela. By 2007, Latinx businesses represented 25 percent of businesses in Guymon.
Significantly, Oklahoma Panhandle State University in Goodwell, Oklahoma, has become the first Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in Oklahoma. The HSI designation requires a Hispanic student population of at least 25 percent, and Panhandle State has over 29 percent Hispanic students.
Located in Shannon Miller Park in Edmond, this bronze statue by Shan Gray honors US Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller. Miller grew up in Edmond and remains one of the most decorated gymnasts in American history, winning a total of seven Olympic medals between the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games and the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
John Smith, an Olympic gold medal wrestler out of Oklahoma State University, is shown here holding the torch and lighting the cauldron during the US Olympic Festival at OU’s Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma. He won the gold medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Smith won gold again four years later at the Olympics in Barcelona. In addition to winning two Olympic gold medals, Smith won the World Wrestling Championship four times between 1987 and 1991. He has been inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Bama Companies and Bama Foods
A number of major companies have Oklahoma ties, including Paycom, Sonic, Ditch Witch, Love’s, QuikTrip, Devon Energy, Chesapeake, and Bama Companies and Bama Foods. Originally established in Dallas, Texas, Bama Pie Company moved its headquarters to Tulsa in 1937. Thirty years later Bama Pie Company became a major supplier of fried fruit pies for McDonald’s restaurants. In the 1980s, Paula Marshall-Chapman, the granddaughter of the founders, became the CEO of Bama Companies and Bama Foods. Their major products include pies, biscuits, and frozen dough, which they supply to McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and Nabisco, including their global markets. In 1992 the company opened a facility in Beijing, China, but the headquarters remains in Tulsa. Bama Companies chose to stay in Tulsa because the city was centrally located in the United States and close to transportation facilities such as the Port of Catoosa, one of the largest, most inland river ports in the country, located at the head of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas Navigation System in northeast Oklahoma.
NASA astronaut John Herrington, a citizen of Chickasaw Nation, became the first Native American in space when he traveled to the International Space Station aboard the space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-113 mission in 2002.
Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.