Downtown honors Clara Luper's legacy

As featured in the Journal Record

Later this year, Oklahoma City will unveil a long-awaited downtown memorial honoring local civil rights icon and esteemed educator Clara Luper. The Clara Luper Sit-In Plaza will feature bronze statues, by Oklahoma-based sculptor LaQuincey Reed and Brooklyn-based StudioEIS, depicting Luper, the 13 schoolchildren who took part in the protest, and the waitress who initially refused to serve them.

In 1958, Luper and the NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma City staged a non-violent sit-in at the downtown Katz Drug Store to help desegregate its lunch counters. After three days of peaceful protest, the store's management agreed to desegregate its lunch counters in Oklahoma and two other states. The sit-ins continued: for more than six years, Clara Luper led additional demonstrations to secure desegregation across our city.

The Clara Luper Sit-In Plaza will occupy the corner of Main Street and Robinson Avenue—between the Corporate Tower and the IRS building—just north of the original Katz Drug Store site. The land is currently owned by the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority (OCURA).

Planning began in 2018, and in January 2025, the Oklahoma City Downtown Design Committee approved the plaza's design plans. More recently, the plans for the plaza were presented in front of the OCURA board to convey the property to the Clara Luper Statuary Plaza Foundation to make improvements to the plaza.

Read the rest of the column in the Journal Record.

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