Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024
Volume 121, Issue 15
VISTA The
Super Bowl Page 6
Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022
“OUR WORDS, YOUR VOICE.”
Volume 119, Issue 19
New Civil Rights Museum coming to Oklahoma City Sam Royka Editor-in-Chief
Two researchers are working with a team of UCO students to archive historical artifacts as they prepare to open the Clara Luper Freedom Center. The new civil rights museum will be located at the old Mobil station that was home to the NAACP Youth Council, expected to bring an economic and cultural boost to the area of Eastside Oklahoma City. Christina Beatty, project director, and Autumn Brown, professor and researcher, are considering the past to contextualize the present and educate the future. “We really have not had a space that acknowledges and celebrates the history of African Americans in Oklahoma City,” Beatty said. “You know, we’re creating something that has not existed.” Beatty sees the Clara Luper Freedom Center as an opportunity “to create a place where people can see themselves and also a place where everyone can learn about the impact that Clara Luper and her students had and that as a city, our place in the civil rights movement is something really for all of us to be proud of.” Luper was an activist and a
Members of the Youth Council sit at Katz Diner in 1958. (UCO PROVIDED/FILE)
teacher who began the sit-in movement with a class of 6-to15-year-olds from the NAACP Youth Council. The first sit-in was at Katz Drugstore, 200 W. Main St. in downtown Oklahoma City, a plan first proposed by Clara’s then-six-year-old daughter, Marilyn Luper Hildreth, after a trip to New York and the unsegregated north. She told her mother she wanted to sit down and drink a soda at a
lunch counter. From Aug. 19 to 21, 1958, that is exactly what they did. Beatty said the museum’s mission will be keeping the spirit of Luper’s work alive and encouraging critical thinking about her goals and accomplishments, but it could also be good for economic development in the area. “Northeast Oklahoma City has been so disinvested for so long. This is a huge, huge in-
vestment, both on the part of the city, as well as our private donors and partners. It is very much a public-private partnership,” Beatty said. In addition to the expected economic boost, there may also be an impact on Oklahoma organizers. Brown said the new Freedom Center will “first set a precedent or create a model for how community organizing took place in Oklahoma City in the past.” “What can we learn from our foremothers about how they organized and activated not only themselves but their community to make change?” Brown said. “And so I think that having this cultural institution in the city will essentially revitalize how we organize by providing a model of how it was already done,” she said. As an organizer, activist, teacher, and mother, Luper’s impact is honored by a street named after her in Oklahoma City, the Clara Luper Corridor. “This idea of radical mothering is rooted in radical love. And I think that that’s what we saw with Clara Luper. She loved her students,” Brown said. But there was something else Luper did that showed the power of her ideals. Cont. on Page 4
Gaza attacked during Super Bowl, 67+ Palestinians dead Sam Royka Editor-in-Chief
During the Super Bowl on Feb. 11, the Israeli government took on a rescue mission that ended in the deaths of 67 Palestinians for the rescue of two hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. The rescue
mission included airstrikes on the area previously deemed safer for civilians in the Gaza strip. Rafah, the southern city in Gaza, was previously deemed an evacuation zone and housed many refugees. While the Israeli government addresses this area as a zone for militants, the Gaza health ministry reports that it is
mostly civilians. Deaths in Gaza surpassed 20,000 last month. Meanwhile, the number wounded and struggling to access food or medicine has risen to above 60,000. The United Nations reports that more Gazans are experiencing famine every day. Rafah is now the most dense-
ly populated city on Earth, housing more than 1.4 million refugees at this time. It is no longer excluded from the strikes. After this, on the night of February 12, at least 14 houses and 3 mosques were confirmed to be damaged or destroyed in that day’s bombing.
Stitt levels criticism at McGirt in State of the State Jake Ramsey Managing Editor
In last week’s State of the State address, Gov. Kevin Stitt continued to criticize the ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which established tribal sovereignty and fostered questions over whether tribal citizens living within Oklahoma’s borders but also within the borders of tribal governments should pay taxes to the state. In his address, Stitt referred to the ongoing Stroble v. Oklahoma Tax Commission case, in which plaintiff Alicia Stroble, a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, makes the claim that, because she earned her yearly income entirely within her nation, she does not owe state taxes to Oklahoma. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the Seminole Nation filed a joint amicus brief in support of Stitt delivers his State of the State address (SUE OGROCKI/ASSOCIATED PRESS). Stroble, arguing “The Oklahoma Tax Commission (OTC) has against the Oklahoma Supreme flouted the law in this case.” “Today, there are tribal govCourt, so she can be exempt Stitt characterized the case ernments supporting a woman from paying state income taxes.” differently in his address. named Stroble in her lawsuit Stitt also implied that Mc-
Girt vs. Oklahoma, the ruling that established tribal sovereignty in the state, was based on race. “We can’t be a state that operates with two different sets of rules,” Stitt said. “Especially based on race.” UCO Professor of History Natalie Panther said Stitt’s claim about race factoring in taxation is false. “He’s referring to the McGirt ruling that reaffirmed Native Nations’ right to self-government,” Panther said. “The McGirt decision is not dealing with race; rather, it’s dealing with citizenship and sovereign nation.” During the address, Stitt said, “It’s a decision that has rocked our state and caused division, where previously there was none.” The 2020 McGirt case ruled in a 5-4 decision that most of Eastern Oklahoma remains an Indian Reservation. Cont. on Page 4