My mother was friends with a woman named Clara Luper, and so I became acquainted with Clara, too.
At 16, I was looking so hard into my own heart, I was unable to see into the hearts of others. And I sadly regret not seeing into the heart of Clara Luper, for it was, indeed, a great heart.
Years later, I read about how, seven years before I knew her, Clara, three other adults, and 14 school kids walked into a Katz Drug Store in Oklahoma City, sat at the lunch counter, and ordered Cokes.
They were refused service because they were black. Instead of leaving, they continued to sit, occupying the stools. The police were called. The group, though threatened and harassed, was not arrested. They sat on the stools until closing time.
The next day, they came back and did the same thing. And the day after that. These were the first sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement. I’m in awe of the bravery it took.
Katz’s Drug Store eventually gave in and allowed all people, regardless of skin color, to be served at their lunch counter.
If I had talked to Clara, I might have learned (instead of reading about it years later) that before those courageous sit-ins, she had, for six months, written letters to the owners of the Katz chain of stores, asking them to allow blacks to eat at their lunch counters. And only after six months of not receiving a single reply did she take matters to the next level.
And it was also many years later that I read how one night, driving home after a sit-in, her car was followed by a car with its lights out.
When Clara turned, the car turned. When she sped up, the car sped up. In the late 1950s in Oklahoma, this was no joke. She was afraid for her life and the lives of her young children who were with her.
If I had asked her, she could have told me how in desperation she had headed for a black section of town. The car followed her. She told her children that when she stopped, they were to get out and run as fast as they could to a house with a porch light on.
She then drove, searching for a house, any house, with a porch light.
When she saw a lighted porch, she slowed down, rolled down her window, honked her horn, and yelled help, murder, fire, help.
A woman stepped out on the porch. Clara stopped her car and told her children, “Run!”
They did, and the woman, a complete stranger, took them inside and closed the door.
Clara continued to drive slowly, honking her horn and yelling. Soon other lights came on and people stepped outside. The car with no lights turned around and sped away.
I wish I had gotten to know Clara Luper better, instead of being so focused on myself.
Perhaps that’s asking too much of a 16-year-old. Still, looking back, the squandered opportunity pains me.
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