Designers hope future Clara Luper Civil Rights Center a 'conduit for keeping stories alive'

When project leaders invited Oklahoma City residents to share their thoughts on the construction of a museum honoring civil rights icon Clara Luper, they heard decades' worth of stories.

Collin Fleck of Bockus Payne Architecture, one of the design team members, said he most enjoyed hearing how Luper impacted residents and what the neighborhood surrounding the new site location looked like in the past.

"So much of it's being torn down now, or has been torn down, and so the only space that those places exist anymore is in their memories," Fleck said.

"I think that (the center) becomes the conduit for keeping those stories alive," he said. "Those stories aren't necessarily written down in any history books; they're just passed on through word of mouth, but (Thursday night) was the forum for collecting some of these stories."

The future Clara Luper Civil Rights Center, planned for NE 25 and Martin Luther King Ave., is being developed through the city's taxpayer-funded MAPS 4 program, with more than $17 million budgeted for the project's design and construction and nearly $10 million for operations and long-term maintenance. The center's design team includes Atelier Cory Henry and Bockus Payne Architecture.

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During the listening session held Thursday at the Ralph Ellison Library, planners with the city's MAPS 4 program and staff with the Freedom Center of Oklahoma City asked residents to write down memories they had of former landmarks around the neighborhood.

Fleck showed The Oklahoman sticky notes posted on a wall where the new center's location map had been projected, with locations like a Dairy Queen soft-serve shop, a Humpty Dumpty grocery store, and popular chicken restaurants like Krispy King and Jim Dandy.

"It starts to paint this picture of what this very vibrant area used to be, and now everything's all torn down or blighted," Fleck said. "But I think it's really interesting to think about how we can reimagine that and carry that legacy forward. I mean, obviously Clara Luper's legacy, but how do we bring that legacy of the local neighborhood and community into the design? How do we bring that into the future now?"

Making change possible

In 1958, Luper successfully led many of her students in conducting nonviolent sit-ins at Oklahoma City drugstores to protest segregation — preceding by almost two years the more nationally publicized sit-ins for desegregation at department stores by hundreds of students in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The new center is meant to honor Luper's legacy and Oklahoma's civil rights movement, with the goal of highlighting how local organizers helped shape nationwide efforts to fight racism. To people overseeing Thursday's listening session, ideas on how to continue honoring those efforts were already becoming apparent as the night continued.

Marilyn Luper Hildreth, one of Luper's daughters who also participated in the sit-ins, said she was happy to see work on the upcoming center progressing, believing it will be another sign of revitalization for northeast Oklahoma City.

"We tried so hard for so many years to make a difference, and it's really hard to make a difference, but we didn't give up — we just kept trying," Hildreth said. "And I'm so proud my mom hung in there to do the best she could, because what she had to work with — she had nothing, but she hung in there and made the change. The civil rights movement in Oklahoma City was built on the have-nots, but we went on with the struggle and we made the change possible."

Staff operating the Freedom Center, the historic building where Luper oversaw the city's NAACP Youth Council for nearly 40 years, also are expected to run the new museum once construction has completed.

"We were especially glad to see an intergenerational crowd," Christina Beatty, project director at the Freedom Center, told The Oklahoman. "We've got some really great interviews, and so that will be really informative for the design process as we think about both the building and the site and think about what used to be there."

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An intergenerational approach

Cory Henry, whose studio will act as lead designer for the project, said the anecdotes people shared about the neighborhood's various connections with Luper would be vital in how they approach implementing plans for the new museum.

"It's easy for a younger generation to not know who these civil rights leaders are because they feel like they're so far removed," Henry said. "But the fascinating thing about Oklahoma City is that Clara Luper is so present in everything here, and it's been inspiring."

Henry said he was stunned by how different each story he heard Thursday seemed, and yet each anecdote pointed to Luper's prominence as an educator who helped foster a love of self and of learning.

"She was a guardian to a lot of members of the community, and then the amazing thing is that they then became guardians of the community as well, because a lot of those people were the organizers of (Thursday's) event," Henry said.

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Planners hope to create opportunities for next generation

Jordan Broiles, newly hired to coordinate programs for the Freedom Center, said he has plans to boost youth involvement at the new center by working with designers to incorporate a café where young professionals can feel welcome to frequent. He also is looking forward to seeing a dedicated venue space at the new center that local organizations can use as a gathering hub.

"Here (at the library) we saw a lot of opportunity for kids to get engaged," Broiles said. "And I think it's important that we keep creating those opportunities for kids and for young people, because one of my fears is that we take a lot of this history now for granted."

Construction on the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center is scheduled for next year, but the Alliance for Economic Development of Oklahoma City already has begun site work and demolition of an old post office at the planned location.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Future Clara Luper center in OKC a 'conduit' for civil rights legacy