Luper Pioneers the Sit-In

When members of Clara Luper's NAACP Youth Council stepped into Katz Drug on August 19, 1958, ordering cokes, they began the first sit-in in the United States. Luper went on to lead the Youth Council in sit-ins across Oklahoma City in restaurants, churches, and more. Although this is not well known outside of Oklahoma, it made a massive impact on the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. In 1960, Luper's method of protest made national headlines when college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, held a sit-in at the Woolworth's lunch counter on February 1, 1960. 

Photo of children at the Katz Drug Sit-In, August 26, 1958. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

Photo by Dick Cobb, of Sit-In participants at Anna Maude's Cafeteria being arrested, March 11, 1961. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.