Chapter 11 | Section 2
Football, Neighborhoods, and Restaurants
As Oklahomans were struggling with the realities of integrated schools, desegregation efforts were happening outside of education. Ten years after Sipuel Fisher was first rejected from law school, Prentice Gautt became, in 1956, the first African American football player at the University of Oklahoma. Even though Gautt was able to join the football team, racism was still present. Coach Bud Wilkinson had to ask people outside of the school for money for his scholarship because so many people at the school did not want him there. Football fans might have cheered for Gautt on the field, but he was not fully accepted. No barber in Norman would cut his hair and no off-campus restaurant would serve him.
OU did not have its first Black professor until 1959 when Melvin B. Tolson, Jr. was hired. And it was not until 1967 that the first Black family bought a house in Norman. A realtor named Sam Mathews helped them make the purchase. George and Barbara Henderson and their seven children moved to Norman after George joined OU’s faculty. What the Henderson family could not have known was that a few miles away from their new home, a white woman was locked up in a mental institution. The reason? She had tried to sell her house to a Black family. Her name was Rosalyn Gilchrist and she was in the fourth year of her court-ordered confinement at the Central State Griffin Memorial Hospital. She was declared “incompetent” because in 1963 she had tried to sell her house in the Oklahoma City suburb of Warr Acres to a Black family. With the help of civil rights attorney E. Melvin Porter and her son, Coleman, Gilchrist was released in 1968. Yet hostility toward African Americans moving into white neighborhoods did not end in the 1960s. By 1970, the real estate company that defied local sundown customs by selling a house to the Henderson family went out of business. The Sam Mathews Social Justice Award was later established in the name of the realtor who sold the house to the Henderson family. But the stories of Rosalyn Gilchrist and Sam Mathews are both important reminders of how systemic racism remained even as civil rights gains were made.
African American students and families continued to have a difficult time gaining acceptance outside of all-Black schools and neighborhoods. Just as the University of Oklahoma struggled with integration and ongoing discrimination, so too did Oklahoma State University (OSU). In 1964, Charles “Chic” Dambach accepted a football scholarship to OSU. He chose OSU in part because of a story he read about the integrated football team. The description impressed him, but he soon learned that there was a double standard for white and Black athletes. Dambach was white, and when he got injured, he was allowed to keep his scholarship as specified by National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) guidelines. In contrast, Black players who were injured were pressured to quit. Dambach described a painful experience when his African American friend and fellow player Earl “Bud” Jones injured his knee. Injured players still had to attend practice, but if they were white, they stayed on the bench. Jones, because he was Black, was not allowed to stay on the bench and was forced to be a target for the defensive line. White linemen were told repeatedly to hit Jones with their helmets on his injured knee. Dambach watched in horror but stayed quiet as the defensive line coach repeatedly yelled at Jones, calling him the “N-word” and urging him to quit. Finally, the head coach interrupted the assault and Jones crawled off the field. Alone. Dambach never recovered from his guilt over not stepping in to help his friend. This is just one of many painful examples of racism and racial abuse at Oklahoma’s colleges. But not all Oklahomans sat back and allowed this treatment to happen without a fight.
Clara Luper and the NAACP Youth Council
Clara Luper is often described as the mother of the Oklahoma Civil Rights Movement. She did a great deal to push for an end to segregation across the state. She did so as a history teacher, a mother, and as the sponsor for the NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma City. In 1957, she wrote a play called Brother President based on the story of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his effort to end segregation in Montgomery, Alabama. Luper and her Youth Council high school students were invited to present the play in New York City, so she created a plan that forever changed the lives of her students and the role of segregation in Oklahoma. Luper wanted her students to see what it was like in cities where segregation was not as bad as it was in Oklahoma. And she wanted her students to see what it was like in cities where segregation was even worse than in Oklahoma.
Protest by religious leaders at the Oklahoma City Municipal Building in 1960. A number of religious leaders played an important role in the promotion of civil rights in Oklahoma and nationally. Many carried signs with the words “NAACP Freedom,” followed by the names of Oklahoma cities. Protests like this one happened around the same time as those held by the Youth NAACP.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
On the trip to New York, Luper and her students took a northern route, and the young travelers had their first taste of eating at an integrated lunch counter in St. Louis. This made quite an impression on them. On their way home from New York, they drove through Tennessee and Arkansas, where eating sack lunches was often their only option. And so an idea began to take hold as they embraced the words of John White, another Oklahoman who fought for civil rights: “The Sooner State, The Sooner we get rid of segregation, the better off we’ll be.” Despite Governor Gary’s support for school integration, segregation remained a reality for many African Americans, including those at Douglass High School, where several members of the Youth Council went to school. In many ways, school desegregation was more complicated and took longer to achieve than the integration of businesses.
By the time Luper and her students returned to Oklahoma City, the students were chanting “Freedom Now! Freedom Now!” and they quickly decided that ending segregation in public places was the top priority for their chapter of the NAACP Youth Council. They wanted to change segregation policies, and this started with stores that included lunch counters. Nothing could have inspired them more than their firsthand experiences. Their strong desire for change led to one of the first lunch counter sit-ins in the entire country. Luper’s daughter Marilyn suggested that the Youth Council go to the lunch counter at Katz Drug Store and order cokes. And so they did. On August 19, 1958, Luper and young people ranging in age from six to fifteen went to Katz Drug Store in Oklahoma City, sat down at the counter, and ordered thirteen cokes. They were refused service and faced hateful words and threatening stares. But they stayed in their seats for hours. Two days later their actions led to victory. The Katz Drug Store chain announced an end to segregated lunch counters in all its thirty-eight stores in Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas, and Arkansas.
Members of the Youth NAACP during the sit-in at Katz Drug Store in August 1958, including Clara Luper and her children, Marilyn and Calvin. While there was no violence against the group as they sat at the lunch counter asking to buy coca colas, the situation was tense, and Luper received a lot of criticism from opponents of integration. Despite that pushback, the protest was successful, and the chain of Katz drugstores ended its policy of segregation.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
This was just the beginning. Not only did Luper and the NAACP Youth Council continue their integration efforts in Oklahoma City, the movement spread throughout Oklahoma and beyond. Following their success at the Katz Drug Store, the Youth Council targeted segregation at the lunch counter at John A. Brown Department Store. This integration effort met with much more resistance than the one at Katz Drug Store. Eventually, Luper met the owner, Mrs. John A. Brown, face to face. In an emotional meeting, the two women embraced and talked about the rumors that each hated the other. They talked about their families and the Youth Council demonstrations. And when Mrs. Brown’s secretary interrupted their meeting to bring them lemonade, Brown told her to serve Luper first. After talking for nearly an hour, Brown said, “Take this message back to the children. Segregation will end at John A. Brown’s.” The Youth Council had achieved another victory.
Over the next several years, the Youth Council organized numerous demonstrations against segregation in Oklahoma City, including at the Skirvin Hotel, the Anna Maude Cafeteria, and Wedgewood Amusement Park. Luper and the Youth Council successfully integrated dozens of establishments between 1958 and 1964, during which time the Oklahoma City Council passed the public accommodations ordinance ending segregation in public places like restaurants. The ordinance meant that Oklahoma City was meeting the requirements of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Civil Rights Act did several important things, but most notably it banned discrimination in hiring practices and public accommodations. This was a significant turning point but certainly not the end to the fight for equality. Luper and other civil rights activists were arrested several times for blocking sidewalks and streets, and for disrupting the peace. As the public face of the movement, Luper received hate mail and faced criticism for her support of desegregation. Nevertheless, her civil rights work inspired many Oklahomans and integration efforts expanded across the state.
Group of young civil rights activists in 1960. The Youth NAACP continued their efforts to challenge segregation in the years following the successful sit-in at Katz Drug Store. Even younger children joined in the efforts to integrate Oklahoma City and surrounding communities.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
One part of the Youth NAACP in Oklahoma City was the Minutemen Commandos. Clara Luper created this group in 1962. Twenty students were members. Their focus was safety. At protests and other demonstrations by the Youth NAACP, they protected those around them. They also spoke directly to those in power at department stores to promote desegregation and to get them to hire Black employees. They wore jackets like the one pictured here showing the front and back of jacket.
Courtesy of Charles Wood and the Oklahoma Historical Society.
One part of the Youth NAACP in Oklahoma City was the Minutemen Commandos. Clara Luper created this group in 1962. Twenty students were members. Their focus was safety. At protests and other demonstrations by the Youth NAACP, they protected those around them. They also spoke directly to those in power at department stores to promote desegregation and to get them to hire Black employees. They wore jackets like the one pictured here showing the front and back of jacket.
Courtesy of Charles Wood and the Oklahoma Historical Society.
As Clara Luper and other civil rights advocates continued their work, nothing proved more poignant than the integration efforts in Tulsa, the site of the worst race massacre in American history. When Luper responded to a friend’s request to lead a march in Tulsa, the people on the bus ride from Oklahoma City to Tulsa could not stop talking about the 1921 race massacre. The disturbing history of the massacre had been erased from the minds of most white Tulsans, and history textbooks remained silent on the violent episode in Tulsa’s past. Black Tulsans, however, kept the story alive in hushed warnings of the violence that the Black community had been subjected to four decades earlier. The sit-ins and marches in the 1960s confronted Tulsa’s past in a way that was uncomfortable for many. The 400-person Freedom March in downtown Tulsa that Luper helped organize inspired civil rights supporters while angering many white Tulsans. Luper and several others were arrested after they tried to eat at Borden’s Cafeteria following the conclusion of the march. Beyond the sit-ins and marches that Luper helped organize in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, she also worked with activists in Norman and Lawton. And her work did not end with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. She fought for equality the rest of her life.
A meeting of the Youth NAACP with Clara Luper in 1964. The Youth Council participated in and organized dozens of events. They worked to increase voter registration and they supported sanitation workers when they went on strike. They also raised funds for many different causes that promoted equal rights and better treatment for Black people.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
In August 1963, Clara Luper along with several other adult chaperons, took two buses of students from the NAACP Youth Council to Washington DC. They went to participate in the March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. This was a life-changing experience for many who attended, including Rosie Gilchrist (pictured here with sunglasses and a scarf). She was the only white female chaperone. Shortly after she returned from this trip, authorities committed her to a mental institution in Norman to stop her from selling her home in Warr Acres to a Black doctor she met on the trip.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.