Carol luper biography

The family name was Umansky.
Clara Shepard Luper was a civic leader, schoolteacher, and pioneering leader in the American Civil Rights Movement.
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Clara Luper

American civic leader

Clara Luper

Born	Clara Mae Shepard May 3, 1923 Okfuskee County, Oklahoma
Died	June 8, 2011(2011-06-08) (aged 88) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Civic leader, school teacher, activist, 1972 Oklahoma candidate for U.S. Senate
Children	2

Clara Shepard Luper (born Clara Mae Shepard May 3, 1923 – June 8, 2011)^[1] was a civic leader, schoolteacher, and pioneering leader in the American Civil Rights Movement.^[2] She is best known for her leadership role in the 1958 Oklahoma City sit-in movement, as she, her young son and daughter, and numerous young members of the NAACP Youth Council successfully conducted carefully planned nonviolent sit-in protests of downtown drugstore lunch-counters, which overturned their policies of segregation. The success of this sit-in would result in Luper becoming a leader of various sit-ins throughout Oklahoma City between 1958 and 1964.^[3] The Clara Luper Corridor is a streetscape and civic beautification proje

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We are at the home of Carol and Fred Luper in Bexley and the date is September 10, and this is Bill Cohen, so let’s start our interview here for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society.

Interviewer: Carol, why don’t you just start… Tell us what you do know about your parents or your grandparents and how did they get you to Columbus. I don’t know if they were born here or elsewhere, just tell us a little family history.

Luper: My mother’s parents came from Lithuania and Russia. My mother’s mother was born in Lithuania. My mother’s father was born in a city called Cheripinka in Russia. They came to Buffalo, New York, settled in Buffalo, New York, and my grandfather opened a fruit stand and my grandmother and their three daughters, the oldest of whom was my mother, worked in the fruit store, and I was born. My parents – start with my mother, first generation American, was born in Buffalo, New York. She had two younger sisters, Vivian and Phyllis. My mother and Vivian are deceased. Phyllis at 83 is still alive

Interviewer: And your mother’s name?

Luper: My mother’s n

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Aug. 19, 1958: Katz Drugstore Sit-Ins

Clara Luper. One of the 26 times she was arrested.

On Aug. 19, 1958, high school history teacher Clara Luper and the NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma began sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters at the Katz Drugstore. As explained on BlackPast.org,

In 1957, Luper escorted her Dunjee High School students to New York City, New York to perform a play she had written, Brother President: The Story of Dr. Martin Luther King, for a national freedom rally.

Inspired by non-violent activism, she and her students returned determined to end segregation in Oklahoma. They staged a sit-in at the Katz Drugstore counter in August 1958.

This sit-in led to numerous other demonstrations at lunch counters, cafeterias, churches, and amusement parks, as well as marches, voter registration drives, and boycotts.

The Oklahoma City Council responded with an ordinance ending racial discrimination shortly before the national 1964 Civil Rights Act. Luper participated, as well, in the civil rights marches in Washington, D.C. and in Selma. Read more.

Luper taught