Clara Luper: Guiding the Youth
Clara Luper was born on May 3, 1923. She attended segregated schools and was the first colored person to be admitted into the University of Oklahoma's history department. After graduation, she taught Social Studies at Dunjee High School.
Clara Luper had high standards for her students. She required her students to stand up straight, speak properly, and show their best at a time when blacks were deemed inferior. She taught more than just textbook Social Studies. She motivated her students, like Portwood Williams, Jr., Stanley Evans, and Joyce Henderson, to maximize their potential.
In this audio clip, Clara Luper was discussing the importance of learning history and the effects of it on people today
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A Collection of Letters and Yearbook Entries from Her Students
Courtesy of the Oklahoma History Society, Research Division, Clara Luper Collection
As a civil rights activist and an NAACP Youth Counselor, Clara Luper inspired young people. In 1958, she took several children to New York to perform Brother President, a play she wrote based on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life. While in New York, the NAACP members sat and ate in integrated restaurants. They were galvanized to make a change. Clara Luper helped the students confront their conflicts with segregation. They devised a peaceful way to protest.
“All of my life, I had wanted to sit at those counters and drink a Coke or a Seven-Up... but I had been taught that those seats were for “whites only.” ... It didn’t make any difference what kind of white person it was... the only requirement was that he or she be white... Nor did it make any difference what kind of black you were... you were not to sit down at any lunch counter to eat.”
- Clara Luper, excerpt from Behold The Walls (1979)