In 1974, David Boren ran against David Hall for the Democratic nomination for governor. His campaign promised to “sweep out the old guard” and get rid of corruption in government.

In 1963, a diverse group of Lawton residents decided that they needed to do something to address racial discrimination in their city. They called themselves “The Group,” and worked to desegregation the city of Lawton.

This term refers to white families who joined a larger national movement to move from cities to suburbs to avoid forced integration and crosstown busing as required by court order.

In the first one hundred days after President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, he signed more legislation into law than any other president in history. Several New Deal programs and reforms were enacted at this time.

National Guard Units from the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma were combined to form the 45th Infantry Divion. During World War II, they served in Italy, France, and Germany. The symbol for the 45th Infantry is an American Indian “Thunderbird,” which is why the 45th is also known as the Thunderbird Division.

On September 11, 2001, the United States experienced its worst domestic terrorist attack since the Oklahoma City bombing. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, including six Oklahomans.

An agreement between the US and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to the US and defined the southern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase. The treaty established the Red River as the border between present-day Oklahoma and present-day Texas.

On April 19, 1995, the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed, resulting in more than 150 people dead and 850 people injured. The Oklahoma City bombing was the worst terrorist attack on American soil in US history before the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

(1854-1931) worked as an educator for the Creek Indian Schools and as postmaster before becoming the first woman elected to Congress from Oklahoma. In her plain-spoken campaign platform, she said simply, “I am a Christian. I am an American. I am a Republican.”

Established in 1968, AIM organizers raised questions about the misuse of federal dollars at the state level for Native students and protested to revise policies at Native American boarding schools. Such activism drew federal attention leading to investigation and reform. Oklahoma had at least ten chapters of AIM.

Protects and preserves the religious rights of Native people. These rights include access to sacred sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and freedom to worship through ceremonies.

Significant oil and gas development located in western Oklahoma, southeastern Colorado, western Kansas, and northeastern portion of the Texas Panhandle.

The idea that all things have a spiritual essence. This belief was common among some Indigenous people and influenced their religious practices.

One of two large drainage basins in Oklahoma (the other being the Red River). Drains most of northern and central Oklahoma within a drainage area of nearly 47,000 square miles.

The process of a minority group taking on the norms and culture of a majority population. The government thought that for Native groups this included giving up all parts of their tribal cultures. The process by which people of one culture are absorbed into another, as when they adopt the practices and beliefs of the other culture and abandon or alter some or all of the customs of their former culture.

Largest Civil War battle that occurred in what is now Oklahoma. The Civil War battle occurred on July 17, 1863, on the lands of the Muscogee Nation at the Honey Springs settlement. This was a place where many stopped for supplies on the Texas Road. The Confederate troops wanted control of it and the rest of Indian Territory. Many of those who fought in the battle were Indigenous. An important victory for Union forces.

The Bell project located in a small community in Cherokee Nation funded the building or remodeling of dozens of homes , as well as the construction of sixteen miles of water lines. By March 1983, when the project ended, all but five of the 103 families living in Bell had contributed to the project by helping do some of the work themselves. The project provided running water to homes.

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Governor Raymond Gary supported the amendment, which included getting rid of separate sources of money for Black schools and white schools in K-12. The amendment to the state constitution passed in a special election in 1955 and was an important step toward school integration.

The highest point in Oklahoma. Located in far northwestern Cimarron County in the Oklahoma Panhandle at an elevation of almost 5,000 feet.

This is an economic term that explains how the economy grows and then decreases, generally based on supply and demand of specific products. Oklahoma has experienced many “boom-bust” cycles in the state’s economy, especially in the oil industry which is an important part of the state’s economy.

In the early 1880s, a boomer was a person who attempted to acquire land in the Unassigned Lands in Cherokee Outlet before it was officially open to settlement or available. Boomers were associated with David Payne and his colony in Wichita, Kansas.

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Black regiments in the US Army formed in 1866 after the Civil War. Buffalo soldiers helped build Fort Sill and were also dispatched to stop squatters from claiming land that they had no legal right to occupy.

An economic system in which private owners control and run the means of production to gain a profit. This economic system grew a lot in the United States in the 19th century and contributed to economic growth nationally and as well as in Oklahoma.

This area consisted of 6 million acres of land located along the border with Kansas in northern Indian Territory. It belonged to the Cherokee Nation for several decades before it was opened to new settlement in 1893 with the largest land run in Oklahoma history.

Chilocco Indian School, a federal off-reservation boarding school, opened in 1883 outside of Newkirk in north-central Oklahoma, near the Kansas border. It operated for nearly 100 years until its closing in 1980.

Around the early 1800s, the Chouteau family established several trading posts in the Three Forks region near Osage communities, exchanging furs from the region for European trade goods as part of the larger fur trade business headquartered in St. Louis.

Banned discrimination in hiring practices and public accommodation. This law contributed to desegregation efforts across the country and in Oklahoma.

This New Deal program was created in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to address widespread unemployment among young men. The CCC employed males ages 18–25. They worked on conservation projects such as trails, picnic areas, and buildings for public use. In return for their labor, the government paid the men monthly wages, plus room and board.

This was a New Deal program started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 to train pilots in the event that the US entered World War II. This program trained hundreds of Oklahoma pilots and played an important role in supporting national defense.

Native American soldiers served as code talkers during World War I and World War II. Choctaw, Cherokee, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Osage code talkers from Oklahoma used their native languages to develop secret messages to support American and allied efforts.

A practice or policy of political, social, economic, and cultural control by one people or power over other people and lands, including labor and resources.

Communists are people who believe in communism, which is an economic system in which there is communal ownership of the means of production. In theory, this system would result in the creation of a stateless society in which every person sees their needs met.

An archaeological site in northwestern Oklahoma indicates how people hunted bison with a spear tipped with a sharp Folsom  point over 10,500 years ago. The site also provides evidence of some of the food they ate, including seeds, nuts, and bison meat.

By March 2020 COVID-19 became a worldwide pandemic. It disrupted daily life and caused millions of people to lose their lives. The pandemic was similar in many ways to the flu epidemic that happened 100 years ago during the First World War.

An example of a movement in 1901 whose purpose was to resist allotment. Chitto Harjo (Muscogee Nation citizen), also called Crazy Snake, did not want the federal government to dissolve Native nations and require their members to accept allotments.

Dissolved the governments including the tribal courts of the Five Tribes and brought Indian Territory under federal control in 1898. Congress authorized the Dawes Commission to prepare new citizenship rolls for each tribe.

(1836-1884) was a key leader in the Oklahoma Boomer Movement in which settlers with no legal claim to the land in pre-statehood Oklahoma were encouraged to move onto the land. Payne and his followers were repeatedly ejected by the army.

Dissolved communal tribal landholdings, except for those belonging to the Five Tribes, in 1887. Each tribal member received an allotment of 160 acres and became a United States citizen. The government sold all lands not given to tribal members. The law acted as an attempt to assimilate tribes until it ended with the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

Records created by the federal government to identify members of the Five Tribes (Cherokees, Muscogee Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Seminoles) living in Indian Territory. Registration took place between 1898 and 1914, but the process was not always accurate.

This policy started in 2012 to protect students who were brought to the United States as children and did not have citizenship or legal residency. The largest number of people under DACA are from Mexico, while others are from Asia, Central or South America, and the Caribbean.

A decrease in government rules or control over an industry. Advocates of deregulation argue that fewer rules lead to more economic growth while critics argue that deregulation leads to fewer protections.

The movement of people from their homeland. This can happen for several reasons, but is most common when people leave their homeland because of conflict, natural disaster, or in search of better food sources.

(see also Doctrine of Discovery) This is the idea that European nations had the right to claim land they discovered through exploration. This meant that these nations could exercise control over land already occupied by Indigenous people.

Loss of voting rights. Some southerners lost the right to vote for their role in the Civil War, but disenfranchisement in Oklahoma was most commonly experienced by African Americans in the years following statehood.

This concept evolved from a Papal bull of Pope Alexander VI in 1493. It assigned Spain exclusive right to acquire territorial possessions and to trade in the New World. It meant that any land not inhabited by Christians was available to be “discovered” and used by Christian rulers. More broadly, it was used to justify how European countries could claim ownership of Indigenous land.

This case in 1918 resulted in Native students having access to public education, overturning previous policy that Native children had to attend schools provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

This case was originally filed in 1961 in response to the slow pace of desegregation in public schools. The case led to a new plan being implemented to increase desegregation through busing. Thirty years later, the desegregation requirement was ended by the US Supreme Court.

This status occurs when someone is a citizen of two nations. In the United States, members of tribes are citizens of both their Native nation and the United States, with rights under both systems.

A series of dust storms in the early 1930s until 1936 in five states caused by new agricultural practices and severe drought. These dust storms affected farms in the Oklahoma panhandle and led to health problems and economic challenges. Some farmers left dust bowl states for good as a result of these hardships.

(1850-1920) was a lawyer and land developer who moved to Oklahoma from New York. He was perhaps the strongest advocate of Oklahoma being the promised land for African Americans. He founded the City of Langston and devoted years of his life to encouraging settlement in All-Black towns.

On June 16, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the act which started the process of merging Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory into the single state of Oklahoma. The act called for the election of delegates for a constitutional convention. Once delegates were in place, a new constitution would be written.

The ERA would have banned discrimination based on sex. It was passed by Congress in 1972 but was three states short of ratification a decade later when the time limit for ratification ended. Oklahoma was one of the states that came to oppose the ERA.

In 1958 Senator Mike Monroney of Oklahoma introduced legislation that created the FAA to provide safe and efficient use of national air space. Ten years later the FAA was incorporated into the US Department of Transportation. The FAA Academy, the training center for air traffic controllers, is housed in Oklahoma City at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center.

The first All-Black Union Army regiment fought in the Battle of Honey Springs in July 1863. The regiment was organized in 1862 and served in Kansas, Missouri, and Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).

In 1918 and 1919 the flu infected nearly one-third of the world’s population. Approximately 500 million people contracted the highly contagious virus, and 50 million of that number died from it. The first recorded case was in Kansas in March 1918 and by 1919 over 7,000 Oklahomans had died from the virus.

In 1824, soldiers from Fort Smith in Arkansas Territory established the fort, the first US military post in Indian Territory (in what would become Oklahoma) on the east side of the Neosho River and located on the Texas Road.

Established in 1869 in present-day Comanche County as an army post by General Phillip Sheridan. Much of the original “old post” was built by Buffalo soldiers following the Civil War. The fort led to the growth of the city of Lawton and became an important training center for artillery units in the twentieth century. During World War II, more than 30,000 artillery officers graduated from the Fort Sill artillery training center.

Ratified in 1868 as part of Reconstruction. It guaranteed due process, equal protection under the law, and citizenship for anyone born in the United States.

Debates over free speech led to a student protest movement beginning in the mid-1960 that advocated for free speech and academic freedom on college campuses. Students wanted to invite speakers to campus and administrators were concerned that the speakers held radical ideas.

People and their descendants who were freed from slavery at the end of the Civil War in 1865. In Oklahoma, this included men, women, and children who were former slaves of the Five Tribes.

The buying and selling of animal pelts for profit. The trade began in the 1500s and was a major part of European expansion in North America. The fur trade in what became Oklahoma led to economic growth and cultural exchange.

Two bronze gates that mark the entrance to the space where the Murrah Federal Building used to exist. The 9:01 on the eastern gate, represents the last moments before the bombing, and 9:03 on the western gate represents the first moments of recovery.

Name given to the Southern Plains by the Long Expedition in 1820. When Long’s men ventured into present-day Oklahoma, he called the area the “great desert” on the map he drew. The label would stick, and Oklahoma would become known for many years as the Great American Desert.

A global economic crisis that started with the stock market crash in 1929. The depression did not come to an end in the US until American entry into World War II. Widespread unemployment led to great suffering in Oklahoma.

An armed protest by Black, Native American, and white tenant farmers in 1917 who opposed the military draft during the First World War. Their plan was to march to Washington, DC to demand an end to the war, but law enforcement quickly brought an end to the rebellion.

Also known as Black Wall Street, Greenwood in north Tulsa was the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. Today the Historic Greenwood District is being considered for national monument status.

Ended the grandfather clause in voting. In presenting their case to the Supreme Court in 1915, NAACP attorneys argued that Oklahoma’s law was unconstitutional because it discriminated against Blacks and violated the Fifteenth Amendment. In its ruling the Supreme Court struck down the grandfather clause.

An Osage headright is a share of the Osage Mineral Estate that entitles the owner to a quarterly distribution of funds. The Osage Mineral Estate is a trust held by the United States for the Osage Nation. The Osage Allotment Act of 1906 required the Osage Nation to divide their land and distribute it to individual members. The act also reserved the mineral rights to the Osage Nation. The mineral rights were divided into 2,229 shares, or headrights, which were distributed to Osage members.

Provided 160-acre tracts of land at no cost to anyone who would stay on that land and make improvements to it for at least five years. After that five-year period ended, the individual or family would have title to the land. Nearly half a million tracts of land across the western United States were distributed by the federal government in the last four decades of the nineteenth century as a result.

An important new technology in oil and gas production, the practice of inserting chemicals, sand, and water into the earth to break up bedrock, a process first started in Oklahoma in 1949. This allows easier access to oil and produces a lot of wastewater in the process. The wastewater is then injected into the ground, resulting in earthquakes and debates over fracking practices.

The process by which the government brings charges against elected officials and may result in removal from office. The impeachment process for elected officials in Oklahoma is similar to the process at the federal level in which charges are brought in the house of representatives and the case is tried in the senate.

Latin for “in place of parents.” The ability of college administrators to make and enforce rules for students. These included things like curfews, course requirements, and dress codes. This ability existed until the 1960s.

Ended the recognized sovereign status of Native nations, instead characterizing Native Americans as individual people and wards of the government.

Passed to protect Indigenous children from being removed from their communities. The legislation gave family members and tribes a greater role in caring for children in difficult situations, rather than completely removing them from everything that was familiar. In 2023, the Supreme Court reaffirmed ICWA, reinforcing the sovereignty of Native nations and placing Native children with extended family and tribal members.

Granted US citizenship to all Native Americans who were not already US citizens. This also meant that Indigenous people would have dual citizenship.

President Andrew Jackson signed this law in 1830. It allowed for the removal of tribes from their ancestral homelands in existing states to new territories west of the Mississippi. This set the stage for the forced removal of the Five Tribes from their homes in the Southeast to present-day Oklahoma.

Also known as the Indian New Deal, this federal law in 1934 changed tribal governance and land ownership. It ended allotment and established a process to restore tribal ownership of land. The act recognized tribal governments and supported tribal constitutions.

In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed this legislation which set the stage for a restoration of tribal sovereignty. The law gave federally recognized Native nations control over administering a range of government sponsored programs as well as their schools, healthcare facilities, businesses, and governments, among other things.

Labor organization representing people in many industries. It had a heavy focus on the rights of the working class and included many socialist members. The IWW opposed World War I which led to a backlash against its members in Oklahoma.

The process of Industrialization had been underway throughout the nineteenth century, but it grew rapidly in the decades following the Civil War. New inventions, expansion of the railroad, and advances in technology led to a growth in industry. The national economy grew larger and more diverse as a result.

A measure in the Oklahoma Constitution that allows voters to play a direct role in making policy. Citizens may introduce proposed legislation through a petition drive. Supporters must collect a certain number of signatures in order for the proposed legislation to be included on the ballot. Once that happens, voters then decide in an election whether to approve it or not. If approved, the measure becomes a part of state law.

The act was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower during the Cold War to establish the national system of interstate and defense highways. Three interstate highways cross Oklahoma: I-35, I-40, and I-44.

In the 1823 ruling, US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall declared that “the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands.” Indigenous people had the right to occupy the land, but not to own it..

Established in 1934, this federal initiative under the Bureau of Indian Education provides funding to public schools for the academic resources and cultural activities of Native American students.

In the fall of 1917, a group of socialist tenant farmers who opposed the draft in the First World War were convicted of conspiracy to obstruct or interfere with the draft. The trial and conviction of these men frightened many Oklahomans and led to greater support for the war.

On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard was sent to campus to ensure that antiwar protests did not turn violent. Members of the guard ordered a large group of students to disperse, but many of these students were just walking across campus and not part of a demonstration. The National Guard opened fire and killed four unarmed students. Several colleges and universities in Oklahoma and across the country held events to mourn the students.

A group of six Kiowa visual artists from Oklahoma. In the late 1920s and 1930s they studied at the University of Oklahoma. They created a new flat-style Southern Plains painting that depicted dancers, social scenes, and daily life. Their work was exhibited at the First International Arts Exposition in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1928.

The KKK played a prominent role in Oklahoma politics and society during the late 1910s and 1920s. In large cities such as Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Lawton, segregation became commonplace, and stories of African Americans being lynched were not uncommon.

The term Latinx refers to both males and females of Latin American descent, who came to Oklahoma from diverse locations, including Mexico, South and Central America, and the Caribbean.

Following the Louisiana Purchase, The US government created the “Corps of Discovery,” which was a military expedition from 1804 to 1806 led by Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Lieut. William Clark. They set out to explore the new territory and lands farther west. They explored lands that stretched from the Mississippi River to the Columbia River.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased all of Louisiana from France for $15 million. By acquiring this vast amount of land, the United States doubled in size. Part of the land, including present-day Oklahoma, became Indian Territory. In the following decades, Native nations from the east were forced to resettle on this land.

In the nineteenth century, many Americans shared in a belief that it was the clear right and “destiny” of the United States to expand all the way from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Some believed that this movement was ordained by God. This was the major motivation for westward expansion.

The use of martial law is generally used for a short period of time in extreme situations. It is enforced by the military and occurs when civil liberties are suspended and civilian government is replaced by military rule.

The act of valuing physical objects and wealth above all. Some activists in the 1960s became critical of Americans who seemed to care more about material goods than problems like war and poverty.

A kinship or family system which traces descent and tribal affiliation through the line of the mother. In Indigenous cultures that trace family and relationships through the maternal (or mother’s) line, these systems result in women maintaining control over the home. Upon marriage men become a part of their wives’ families.

Robert S. Kerr worked with fellow senator, John L. McClellan of Arkansas to secure federal funding for construction along the river that ran through both states in order to stabilize the Arkansas River. The US Army Corps of Engineers worked for sixteen years to widen, deepen, and stabilize the river at a cost of $2 billion. The navigation system opened in 1971.

In 2020, the US Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that the state of Oklahoma did not have criminal jurisdiction over Jimcy McGirt, because he was a tribal citizen accused of committing a crime on tribal land. This decision granted tribal jurisdiction over much of eastern Oklahoma and reaffirmed the Muscogee Nation’s 1866 treaty with the United States with respect to reservation boundaries.

In 1950, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of George McLaurin’s claim that Oklahoma’s segregation laws violated his rights. The court ruled that segregation in graduate programs violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This ruling outlawed racial segregation in state-supported graduate education.

This study published in 1928 provided a comprehensive study of the status of Indigenous people in the United States, including Oklahoma. The report strongly criticized the federal government’s policies toward Native Americans and its treatment of them. The report became even more important in the following decades because it supported greater self-governing for Native nations.

This sales-tax-funded initiative in Oklahoma City was first approved in 1993. It focused on public projects to enhance the quality of life for residents and visitors. The purpose of MAPS was to make city improvements to encourage young people to stay in Oklahoma.

In 1958, history teacher and advisor Clara Luper accompanied members of the council (young people ranging in age from six to fifteen) to Katz Drug Store in Oklahoma City where they engaged in one of the first lunch counter sit-ins in the country. They were refused service, but continued until the Katz Drug Store chain agreed to desegregate. The council continued to support desegregation efforts.

This is the largest and oldest civil rights organization in the country. It was formed in 1909 and chapters emerged all across the US, including in Oklahoma. The NAACP was at the forefront of numerous court challenges to segregation.

This federal law was passed in 1990. It requires museums and federal agencies return certain Indigenous cultural items, including human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony, to Native nations.

A series of domestic programs, public works projects, and financial reforms and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the US between 1933 and 1938, for the purpose of addressing the Great Depression.

This trade agreement was signed in 1992 between the US, Canada, and Mexico. It went into effect in 1994 and established a free-trade zone in North America.

In January 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson said he was declaring an unconditional “War on Poverty.” He then created the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to work with states and support local efforts. For many of Oklahoma’s Indigenous nations, the programs also allowed them to indirectly assert their sovereignty or control over tribal affairs.

In 1968, Governor Dewey Bartlett created this secret government agency to spy on suspected radicals. The agency was housed in the Oklahoma Military Department and was paid for with money set aside for the National Guard. By the time it was abolished a few years later, the OIC had collected files on over six thousand Oklahomans including student activists, politicians, and Indigenous leaders.

The museum and outdoor space are designed as spaces to remember those who perished on April 19, 1995, in the Oklahoma City bombing. The museum receives visitors from across the country and from around the world each year.

In 2008, the SuperSonics men’s professional basketball team moved from Seattle to Oklahoma City and the owners changed their name to Oklahoma City Thunder. The team has made a number of economic and cultural contributions to the city and the state.

Oklahoma and Indian Territory each elected 55 delegates, and the Osage Nation elected 2. Of the 112 total delegates at the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention in 1906, only 12 were Republicans. Democratic leader Bill Murray presided over the event and the new constitution was successfully drafted.

One month after the US entered the First World War in 1917, the federal government asked each state to organized its own council. In Oklahoma, the council established eleven committees, including munitions, manufacturing, supplies, labor, publicity, and finance.

A term that describes the way that Oklahomans responded to the Oklahoma City Bombing. Many use it to mean resiliency in the face of adversity. They relate it to all the issues that Oklahoma has seen in its history and the ability of those living here to push through them and support one another.

In 1991, the US Supreme Court ruled that nontribal members were subject to state sales taxes, even when the product they were buying was sold on tribal land. The ruling also said that tribes had an obligation to assist with the collection of that tax. This led to compacts being negotiated between tribes and the state.

In 1941, the state legislature passed this law to make it illegal for African Americans and whites to attend school together. The law was in response to NAACP plans to push for desegregation in the state.

The musical appeared on Broadway in 1943. Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein adapted Cherokee playwright Lynn Riggs’s 1931 play Green Grow the Lilacs into a full-stage musical. Oklahoma! was a box-office hit and its original production ran for more than 2,212 performances. The film was released in 1955. The songs in the musical and the film are highly popular to this day. “Oklahoma!” is the official state song.

LaDonna Harris (Comanche) founded OIO in 1965 in order to “improve social and economic opportunities of Oklahoma and American Indians and draw them more fully into the Oklahoma and American economy and culture.”

OKPOP is a twenty-first century museum located in Tulsa, OK that showcases the creative impact of Oklahomans in art, literature, music, and other aspects of popular culture.

In 1890, the Organic Act created the twin territories of Oklahoma and Indian Territories. This paved the way for settlement and statehood.

This law divided Osage land between its 2,229 tribal members and established a trust for the mineral rights. Profits from subsurface mineral rights were shared by members of the Osage Nation, based on the list of tribal members created by the government.

Between 1921 and 1925, dozens of Osage were murdered in order to gain access to their subsurface mineral rights (which included oil). The Osage Tribal Council requested assistance from the federal government to investigate and bring an end to the killings.

The trail (also known as the Texas Road) was a popular travel route. It followed the Grand River south from Kansas to the Three Forks area before turning south towards Arkansas. The tribe used in when traveling into the plains and overtime it became popular with traders, other tribes, and government officials.

Opposition to all conflict, including war, in all circumstances. People who hold this belief argue that all conflict should be solved peacefully.

Fraud and poorly vetted loan deals caused the bank to go under. The bank closed its doors in 1982. The bank’s failure led to firmer banking laws and regulations in Oklahoma and throughout the United States.

In 1896, the US Supreme Court ruled that requiring separate facilities based on race did not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment so long as those facilities were equal. The ruling created the legal justification for segregation with the concept of “separate but equal.”

This was a fee or tax that people had to pay in order to vote. It was commonly used to prevent African Americans from voting. In 1964, the Twenty-Fourth Amendment banned the use of poll taxes in federal elections.

This was a political movement in the late nineteenth century that focused on the interests and issues of farmers. They believed that those in power ignored the concerns of regular people. Many in the working class had similar criticisms of politicians and Populism tried to unite these two groups.

This movement emerged nationally at the end of the nineteenth century and dominated the first two decades of the twentieth century. Progressives did not all share the same set of beliefs, but the did believe that progress and improvement were possible through passing new laws.

Protective legislation is a type of law that offers added protection to a particular group, such as women, children, or elderly people. Maternity leave is an example of protective legislation.

The Five Tribes were forced by the federal government to sign new treaties at the end of the Civil War. These 1866 treaties resulted in the loss of tribal land and resources while opening the door to new settlement.

In 1819, the Adams-Onís Treaty established the Red River as the southern border of the Louisiana Purchase. In 1923 the US Supreme Court clarified that the south bank is the border between Oklahoma and Texas.

In 1919 and 1920, Attorney A. Mitchell Palmer led the first Red Scare (a reference to the red flag that is a symbol of communism). He ordered hundreds of raids against suspected radicals, but failed to turn up any significant threats and the raids ended.

This is a provision in the Oklahoma Constitution that allows citizens to vote on legislation already passed by the legislature. By collecting enough signatures, citizens can get a referendum on the ballot that allow voters to decide whether it should stay a part of state law or be repealed.

The Indian Appropriations Act of 1851 created the reservation system. The intent was to place Indigenous people on smaller areas of land and “civilize” them through formal education and religious instruction, but numerous problems emerged. Corruption, food shortages, and conflict plagued this failed policy.

The symbol of women’s contributions to the war effort working in wartime industries in the US during World War II. The federal government campaign was focused on encouraging women to join the war effort by working in the defense industry producing war materiel during World War II.

Beginning in 1926, the major highway, called the “Mother Road,” went through eight states from Chicago to Los Angeles. Many people traveled along the road during the early twentieth century, including people moving west from Oklahoma to California during the Dust Bowl.

Established in 1935 as part of the New Deal, the REA extended electrical power to rural areas. As a result of this program, two-thirds of Oklahoma farmers had electricity by 1950.

Following the Civil War and the 1866 Reconstruction Treaties, a second period of Indian removal took place in which tribes from several states were forced to relocate to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma.

Native tribes which lived in one location for most of the year. These tribes often engaged in agriculture and lived in permanent villages and structures. This is in contrast to nomadic tribes which moved about continually and utilized more portable types of shelter.

(also referred to as Jim Crow or Jim Crow Segregation) – Following the Civil War, segregation laws became common, especially in the South. Whites and Blacks were required to occupy separate spaces, including separate schools and railroad cars. These laws were overturned in the 1960s, both nationally and in Oklahoma.

This 1917 law allowed the government to hold a draft for World War I. It required men between the ages of 21 and 30 to register. The following year they broadened the age range to ages 18 to 45.

The ability of a person, group, or nation to have power over itself. It is the process by which a country determines its own statehood and forms its own allegiances and government. Self-Determination for Native nations includes the sovereign right to govern.

This law required segregation of whites and Blacks in public transportation and waiting rooms. It overwhelmingly passed the Oklahoma Senate a month after statehood and shortly thereafter passed the House. It was signed into law by Governor Charles N. Haskell on December 18, 1907.

In 1905, this movement promoted the creation of the all-Indian state of Sequoyah in Indian Territory. While this movement did not succeed, it was a powerful effort by Indigenous leaders to maintain sovereignty rights.

Shale Fracking is the process used to extract or remove natural gas from shale formations.

A Supreme Court decision in 1948 against racial segregation in state law schools. The court ruled unanimously in favor of Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher who became the first Black student admitted to the University of Oklahoma law school.

This third political party grew in popularity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century among workers. Socialists were critical of wealthy people who controlled the mode of production. In Oklahoma, poor tenant farmers identified with this party in part because of dramatic increases in rent rates for the land they farmed.

The ability or authority of a nation to govern itself is a central feature of sovereignty. Native nations have fought continuously to maintain their sovereign status. Indigenous sovereignty rights have continued to grow since the 1970s.

In 1763, all lands west of the Mississippi River became part of Spanish Louisiana. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Native tribes established and strengthened ties with their new trading partners.

This collection of twelve mounds served as an important trading center for people of the Caddoan Mississippian culture. They were in what is now Le Flore County, Oklahoma where the mounds remained an important cultural site from around 850 to 1450.

In 1879, the US Supreme Court ruled on the “personhood” of Native Americans. The ruling indicated that Native Americans have personhood under the US Constitution which protests their rights under federal law

In 2016, Oklahoma voters approved this ballot initiative making drug possession a misdemeanor rather than a felony. The legislature made State Question 780 retroactive, and under this policy in 2019 Governor Kevin Stitt commuted the sentences of 450 inmates.

In 2016, Oklahoma voters approved this ballot initiative directing the Office of Management and Enterprise Services to determine the savings to the state from criminal justice reforms and put that surplus into a new fund for county governments to provide substance abuse and mental health services.

Black people and other people of color could work or visit the town during the day but had to leave by the time the sun went down. Those who remained in the town after dark could face violence or legal backlash. People of color could not live or buy homes in such towns.

The American elm tree across the street from the Murrah Building. Against all odds, it survived the bombing in 1995 and stands today at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum as a symbol and a gathering place for family members and survivors.

Farmers who rented their land instead of owning it. They either paid rent with money or with a percentage of their crop. Until the 1940s, over half of Oklahoma farmers rented rather than owned their land.

(see also Osage Trace) This road served as the main north-south route through the lands of the Cherokee, Muscogee, and Choctaw tribes in Indian Territory. It followed the Osage Trace southwest along the Grand River to the Three Forks area. It then continued southwest, crossing into Texas near what is now Colbert, Oklahoma.

The sprawling park opened in 2018 along the Arkansas River in Tulsa. Funded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, the $465 million park on 66 acres features interactive playgrounds, recreational trails, a boathouse pavilion, and skate park. The park is one of the nation’s largest and most ambitious public parks ever created with private funds.

Published by John Steinbeck in 1939, this book tells the story of the Joad family as tenant farmers in Oklahoma who travel west to California looking for economic opportunity. Although the novel received the Pulitzer Prize in literature, it has been difficult for the state of Oklahoma to escape the negative Okie stereotype Steinbeck made famous.

The Wichita, Caddo, and Osage Nations lived and traded in this area. It was in present-day eastern Oklahoma at the place where the Verdigris, Grand, and Arkansas Rivers meet.

Historically, many Native tribes have practiced this companion farming method, which consists of planting beans, corn, and squash in one area. The corn provides the beans with stalks to grow up. The beans put nitrogen into the soil which nourishes the corn and squash. The spiny squash leaves protect all three plants.

Built in 1941 and originally named Midwest Air Depot, the base was renamed in 1943 in honor of Major General Clarence L Tinker (Osage) who died during WWII. Since WII, the base has continued to employ thousands of civilian and Air Force personnel.

This is a system of knowledge about the environment that is gained and passed down by those that have lived in an area for long periods of time. It is especially common among Indigenous people.

Traditionalists were tribal members who were dedicated to maintaining traditions and preserving culture. They were less likely to embrace changes introduced by newcomers and outsiders.

During the Civil War in 1861, Muscogee leader Opothleyahola led his people to Kansas for refuge. They endured low supplies, extreme cold weather, and attacks from Confederate troops. Several thousand people died.

In the 1830s, the forced removal of tribes from the southeastern United States to Indian Territory resulted in many hardships and thousands of deaths among the Choctaw, Seminole, Muscogee, Chickasaw, and Cherokee tribes.

Signed in 1837, this treaty laid out the terms of removal for the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes. They sold their land in Mississippi to pay for land in Indian Territory.

Signed in 1867, this treaty included separate agreements signed by the Comanches and Kiowas, the Kiowa-Apaches, and the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahos. Each of these agreements required the tribes to move onto reservation land.

Signed in 1835, this treaty laid out the terms of removal for the Cherokee tribe. They received land in Indian Territory and $5 million to give up their land in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Many in the tribe did not support the treaty.

This includes the right to self-determination e-determination for the right of Native American tribes to govern themselves, including making laws, establishing courts, and managing their economies.

On May 31 and June 1, 1921, thirty-three acres of the thriving Greenwood District, also called “Black Wall Street,” was burned to the ground and hundreds were killed in one of the worst acts of racial violence in US history.

Following allotment after the Civil War, the remaining lands were deemed surplus and eventually opened to homesteading through land runs.

During the 1960s, college students started publishing their own alternative newspapers in order to write what they wanted without censorship from administration.

The Vietnam War was a conflict that lasted from 1955 to 1975. The United States supported South Vietnam against North Vietnam as part of America’s commitment to contain communism. American troops withdrew in 1973, and North Vietnam defeated South Vietnam two years later. Over 58,000 American soldiers died in the war.

In 2003, voters approved a one cent sales tax to raise money for projects throughout Tulsa County. The county raised $662 million over 15 years and funded projects in the city of Tulsa as well as the towns of Bixby, Broken Arrow, Collinsville, Glenpool, Jenks, Owasso, Sand Springs, Skiatook, and Sperry.

This memorial was designed by artist Harvey Pratt (Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma), a retired Marine Corps Vietnam veteran to honor the service of Native Americans in every branch of the US military. The National Native American Veterans Memorial opened in 2020 on the grounds of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.

On November 27, 1868, General George Custer led an attack on a peaceful band of Cheyenne led by Black Kettle, mistaking them for another band of Cheyenne responsible for several raids that summer. Over a hundred Cheyenne men, women, and children, including Black Kettle were killed.

This was a branch of the Naval Reserve for women. During World War II, over 100,000 women served in the US Navy program. The program was designed to train women to fill jobs that men would otherwise have performed, so that the men would be able to fight on the front lines.

(1879-1935) grew up to become Oklahoma’s favorite son. He was a writer and humorist known for his wit and insight into everyday life. His writings left a lasting impact on his home state.

In 1832 the US Supreme Court ruled that Georgia did not have the right to impose state laws on Cherokee land. Chief Justice John Marshall described Native nations as “distinct independent political communities” who retained “their original natural rights as the undisputed possessors of the soil.”