In an Oklahoma Hall of Fame class, which should be known hereafter as the Centennial Giants, Clara Luper must have secretly contemplated whether her contributions to the civil rights movement during the tumultuous 1950s and ‘60s would get much attention with the likes of Aubrey McClendon, Clay Bennett and Toby Keith as fellow inductees. Even Bennett’s introducer (NBA Commish David Stern) received a standing ovation from the 1000+ attendees at the Cox Center. Mrs. Luper’s induction, in my opinion, stood out among her classmates for what she didn’t say.
For starters, Clara was sitting. With a satisfied half-smile on her face, she did not speak at all.
This is a disaster, I thought as the seconds ticked by – each seemingly slower than the previous one.
Mrs. Luper is at the dusk of life. She appears healthy, but after decades of speaking with urgency for changes in how our society views those with skin of color, the former educator found herself speechless. I have no idea if Mrs. Luper is able to speak or not, but what transpired for the first person inducted this year was powerful.
Mrs. Luper was introduced by her long time friend, Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice Tom Colbert. His speech was not to unlike presenters who followed, although he did a nice job of highlighting the career of a woman who counted Martin Luther King, Jr. among her friends. Known as the mother of the civil rights movement, Luper coordinated the first publicized sit-in in the nation when she led the historic event in a sit-in at the Katz Drug Store lunch counter in
Thanks to her patience and persistence, Katz eventually desegregated the lunch counters in all of its 38 stores in
On this night, decades later, Mrs. Luper was wheeled on to the stage by her daughter. Surely she’d say something meaningful about her plight. And then nothing. More nothing. Silence. Mrs. Luper kept the large crowd on the edge of their seats for more than a minute. The lady who always had something to say said nothing. She had a platform to share the fruits of her many years of labor. Silence. She could have spoken about what
For Hall of Fame inductees, each speaker has the option of reading prepared remarks on a teleprompter at the back of the room. As levels of boredom came and went and lengthy introductions dragged on, I would read ahead (PR people sometimes have this affliction). Following the long silence, her daughter spoke on her behalf and it was beautiful. It was delivered with the kind of exquisiteness and passion that only a daughter can communicate about her mother. She did not read from the prompter and it was not clear if she had practiced her unexpected remarks. I can’t recall specific sentences that she shared, but they highlighted Clara’s career work, shared a vision of what
Clara Luper said so much without saying anything at all.
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