Realities and Inspirations for Occupiers

During my senior year, Bob Darcy oversaw my independent study course. He wanted me to use grassroots campaign techniques to achieve his dream of getting Murray Hall renamed renamed for Clara Luper.

OK? What? Who?


Clara Luper: Oklahoman, Civil Rights Leader, Teacher, Radio Host, Activist, My Hero.

Bob Darcy: Political Science Professor, Oklahoma State University

"Alfalfa" Bill Murray: Oklahoma's Depression era Governor, a notorious racist, achieved the honor of having his name on the building under dubious circumstances.


The following an exert from my biography of Clara Luper, which appears in the African American National Biography, Published By Harvard University Press, Edited by Henry Louise Gates Jr

Luper, Clara (3 May 1923- 8 June 2011) Teacher, Activist, Writer, was born Clara Sheppard; one of five children born to Ezell and Isabel Sheppard in Okfuskee county Oklahoma. Violence against blacks and extreme segregation practices were common in rural Oklahoma...

In January 1957 Luper became the Oklahoma City NAACP youth council Advisor. She wrote and directed a play about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the non-violence philosophy. The NAACP youth council performed “Brother President” that May for Negro History Week. A national NAACP representative saw the play and invited the group to come to New York to perform at an upcoming NAACP rally. In St. Louis they experienced their first integrated meal and continued to enjoy integrated services throughout their stay in New York. The trip changed the group forever; returning home they immediately began negotiations to desegregate public accommodations in Oklahoma City.

Luper had a talent for organizing and inspiring young people. She told them they had a responsibility to become engaged in the struggle for civil rights. After writing letters and asking businesses to integrate for more than a year, the group voted to take action. On August 19, 1958 the NAACP youth, age 6-17, staged a sit-in at Katz Drug Store in Oklahoma City. The police and the press watched as white patrons threatened and insulted the group, but the NAACP youth followed “Martin Luther King’s Non-Violent Plans,” the foundation of their non-violence training (Luper 10). Over the next six years Luper lead the NAACP youth and hundreds of their supporters through non-violence training workshops, sit-ins, lay-ins, marches and a boycott. They were spit on, stepped on, slapped, arrested and attacked by a chimpanzee but remained non-violent. One by one, eating establishments integrated. In July of 1964, the Oklahoma City sit-in campaign declared victory.

In 1959 Ezell Blair attended the NAACP national convention where he heard Luper speak about the Oklahoma City Sit-ins. In 1960, Blair participated in a sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina, often described as the first civil rights sit-in. (Bond, 16-20 July 2006) Luper marched with Dr. King at Selma, Alabama and the youth council filled two busses for the 1963 March on Washington. The Oklahoma City NAACP youth council was voted best in the nation many times under Luper’s guidance. Despite her success with the youth, there were occasional tensions between Luper and the state and national NAACP leadership...

I won't be the first person to draw parallels between Occupy and the Civil Rights movement. I think it is important that occupiers have successful models to look towards when formulating strategies for protest. But I want occupiers to recognize, plan for, and accept is that this effort will take years. We must overhaul our legal, political, financial, and government institutions. It has taken over 100 years for the corporatocracy to achieve this much power and influence. The highest echelons of society have consistently pursued policies that would serve their interests. While we have turned our problems over to people who are in their pockets.

There are many examples where progress is under attack, where victories have been hollowed or overturned. The American People must decide to be consistently politically active and to make every effort to become fully informed about our institutions. We must decide what our values are and what we want institutions to accomplish. Then we must provide the incentives necessary to get people to act in a way that makes more people better off. We must be prepared to do whatever it takes, indefinitely, if we expect accomplish the changes we chant about.