Blocks from where she initiated one of the first sit-in movements in the country, civil rights icon Clara Luper will now be commemorated on behalf of the post office in downtown Oklahoma City.
Luper’s descendants, former students, and original “seat insiders” joined local dignitaries for the inauguration of the Clara Luper Post Office Building, 305 NW 5, on Saturday morning. The facility was formerly called Center City Station.
Luper’s daughter, Chelle Luper Wilson, said her mother would want anyone who sees her name on the building to take it as a call to action against inequality.
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“One of the things I know she would say is that her name should never be just a symbolic gesture,” said Wilson. “For her it was never about symbolism without action. It was about structural and systemic change.
“I know that when they see her name, she wants people to not only think, ‘Oh great, what a great woman,’ but hope that it will make them excited about something.”
Luper, a longtime public school teacher, died in 2011 at the age of 88.
The renaming coincided with the 63rd anniversary of the sit-in movement in Oklahoma City.
Luper and a group of black school children arrived at the Katz drugstore’s white-only lunch counter on August 19, 1958 and refused to leave until they were served. It marked the start of a successful six year campaign to end segregation in Oklahoma City facilities.
More:New artwork in honor of civil rights activist Clara Luper in Midtown OKC. displayed
Gwendolyn Fuller Mukes, Ph.D., was one of the students who, 63 years ago, as president of the NAACP Youth Council at the time of the movement, lined the lunch tables at the Katz drugstore.
She said Luper would have been excited and delighted if she had been alive to see the post office rebranded.
“It’s amazing,” she said. “I would never have imagined that in 1958.”
The dedication was at the center of several anniversary events this week, including a reenactment of the Katz sit-in, a service at Fifth Street Missionary Baptist Church, and the unveiling of new works of art depicting Luper.
Of the 31,000 post office branches, about 900 are named after a person, said Julie Gosdin, district manager of the U.S. Postal Service in Arkansas, Oklahoma. Only 10 of the 600 post offices in Oklahoma have been consecrated in honor of one person.
Luper is the first woman in Oklahoma to have a post office named after her, Gosdin said.
The attendees of the ceremony, moderated by US MP Stephanie Bice, commemorated the event with a specially designed postage stamp depicting Luper.
Former US MP Kendra Horn wrote the bill to rename the downtown post office. Senator James Lankford directed legislation through the US Senate. Former President Donald Trump put the law into effect on January 5th.
Horn said she wanted to find a way to honor Luper’s legacy after celebrating the 60th anniversary of the katz sit-in in 2018. Although Luper has no significant connection with the postal service, Horn said it was a priority to have Luper’s name on a centrally located building.
The post office is 800 m from the former Katz drugstore, 200 W Main. It’s also near the site of the 1969 plumbing strike – another major Oklahoma City civil rights initiative that Luper spearheaded.
“Honoring Clara Luper and the Sit-Inners and the work they have done has to be the focus,” said Horn. “Not hidden anywhere else.”
Positioning the post next to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum is also important, Horn said.
The 1995 bombing, orchestrated by a white extremist, destroyed the original post office along with the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt called the bombing a “triumph of dehumanization,” in contrast to Luper’s tireless advocacy of human rights.
“And now the name of a black woman who was arrested two dozen times while fighting for racial equality is emblazoned on a public building that was once blown up by a white racist,” Holt said in his address during the renaming ceremony. “History moves in fits and starts, but like Dr. Martin Luther King, President (Barack) Obama and others have said bowing their bow toward justice. ”
Reporter Nuria Martinez-Keel covers the K-12 and higher education across the state of Oklahoma. Do you have a story idea for Nuria? She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @NuriaMKeel. Help Nuria and other journalists in Oklahoma by subscribing to a digital subscription today at Subscribe.oklahoman.com.
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