Civil Rights

I always enjoy listening to the Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, given on Aug. 23, 1963, when we celebrate his life each year.

I wonder what our world would be like without King’s achievements? This year, I wonder, too, what King would think about our corporate-controlled political world and the burgeoning protests against it. It’s going to be an interesting spring and summer in this nation as protesters hit the streets.

The annual Oklahoma City parade honoring King’s life will begin at 2 p.m. Monday, Jan. 16. It begins at NW 7th Street and Broadway Ave. and then proceeds down Broadway to Sheridan. Here’s a listing of some events. There will be special tributes this year to local civil rights activist Clara Luper, who died last June. I wrote about Luper’s life here.

I guess it’s not surprising, but it’s still disappointing that Oklahoma City Councilman Ed Shadid’s proposal to add sexual orientation to the city’s anti-discrimination policy has met with what appears to be indifference and opposition from some council members.

Shadid, who represents Ward 2, introduced the measure at a city council meeting Tuesday. It was tabled until the Nov. 15 meeting. According to media reports, Ward 3 Councilman Larry McAtee and Ward 5 Councilman David Greenwell led the effort to defer the measure for more study.

At the meeting, Ward 7 Councilman Skip Kelly, according to reports, said he doesn’t think sexual orientation should be added the policy, which includes sex, race, religion and political affiliation, unless there’s evidence such discrimination exists in hiring or in city departments. This position obviously ignores the long-term discrimination faced by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) community here and throughout the country.

Shadid and Ward 8 Councilman Pat Ryan supported the measure. Mayor Mick Cornett, who once touted his opposition to gay-themed children’s books in a 2006 political campaign, was not at the meeting Tuesday.

Although cultural attitudes have shifted and become more tolerant in recent years, the LGBT community still faces overt and subtle discrimination and even worse. NewsOK.com, for example, recently published a story outlining the life and suicide of a young, gay Norman man who took his life after attending a Norman city council meeting in which some residents apparently expressed hateful comments about the LGBT community. We are also not that far removed from the 1998 murder Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming. Witnesses at his trial testified he was killed because of his sexual orientation.

There should be no hesitation or equivocation. Adding sexual orientation to the city’s anti-discrimination policy is an act of social justice, equality and basic pragmatics when it comes to the city’s hiring and management practices. If Oklahoma City leaders hope to one day shed the city’s pedestrian, narrow-minded image, they must decisively approve the measure.

Even Tulsa has approved an anti-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation.

Unfortunately, Oklahoma City has a history of homophobia. In 2001, the city, under the leadership of former Mayor Kirk Humphreys, removed gay pride banners from light poles supposedly because of citizen complaints. This resulted in an antagonistic relationship between the city and the local LGBT community.

In his 2006 campaign for U.S. 5th District Congressional seat, Mayor Cornett, according to an older Okie Funk post, “placed an advertisement on radio in which he takes responsibility for reshelving non-sexual, gay-themed children’s books at local libraries.” The reshelving made the books inaccessible to children.

There’s also state Rep. Sally Kern, who represents a district in west Oklahoma City. In 2008, she claimed homosexuals are a greater threat to the country than terrorists.

Thirty-five Negro children sat quietly for more than six hours Friday in the John A. Brown Co. luncheonette, in the fourth day of their campaign to win food and drink service from downtown firms.—The Daily Oklahoman, Aug. 23, 1958

What can never be understated is the courageousness of civil rights icon Clara Luper and those children—at the time—who broke down segregation barriers in the 1950s by sit-ins at Oklahoma City lunch diners, diners which refused to serve them simply because they were black.

Luper, who was 88, died last week, and her death was noted locally and nationally. The issue of her courage and the courage of the children is what prevails after all these years and will continue to prevail. It’s difficult to find that type of courage today in political action.

Here’s some of the bleak reporting in The Daily Oklahoman about the sit-in at the John A. Brown Co. luncheonette in August, 1958:

Police ordered one white woman woman to leave after she sat down in the lap of a Negro girl who was sitting alone at a table.

One white man was ejected from the luncheonette after he loudly criticized Negroes.

Four white boys were also ejected and taken to the store manager’s office for a conference with police and store officials after they entered the luncheonette, displaying a “rebel flag.” Police confiscated the flag. A number of white customers left angrily when Negro youths sat beside them. Most, however, paid no attention.—The Daily Oklahoman, Aug. 24, 1958

Luper, who served as an advisor to the children, prevailed against this backdrop of hatred, and, though racism continued and continues, a main obstacle of segregation was overcome locally and regionally. Her sit-ins at a Katz drugstore, for example, forced the company to integrate all its stores through the Midwest.

Luper, a longtime local teacher and activist, made Oklahoma City a better place for everyone.