Clara Luper, a Name Within a Name, In Civil And Human Rights

To the insistence of Clara Luper, from the state of Oklahoma, on a cool fall morning, I sat and listen at breakfast to her tell me why she thought people from everywhere needed to get involved in human rights somewhere, whatever the location. She spoke in depth of her love, devotion and commitment, as she placed, it to “the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She spoke to the reasons as to why she had served as an advisor to so many young people throughout the years and all of the good things they were doing. Comically, as only an educator can do, she told one of her young people to “never refer to the organization as the N – double A C P. There is no such thing as double A,” she admonished.

Afterward, I was given a tour of what was left of the Building that was bombed by an American Citizen-turned-terrorist that we came to know as Timothy McVeigh, and the park that was dedicated as a memorial to the victims. She then took me back to her home, followed by the Martin Luther King, Jr. center where she also gave me a personal in-depth tour, complete with her saying that civil and human rights was a continuing movement! She repeatedly spoke of all her years, which consisted of most of her life, spent fighting for the least of God’s children for the greater good in every arena that she could imagine. Fresh in my memory, as though it occurred today, it happened more than a decade ago while on my first visit to Oklahoma City.

Like many other people whose names we will never know, Clara Luper is the personification of the pillars on which, I maintain, we all have our foundation. She not only paved the path but in the process of her journey set the example that we have a responsibility to emulate. As I remember, Ms. Luper spoke softly but carried a large stick while changing the community around her and in doing so, changed the world for the greater good of humanity. Countless people sat at her feet and learned, as she was a master teacher.

As I remember Clara Luper, I am reminded of what the poet Sam Walter Foss tried to convey rhetorically to the world when he just simply requested to a higher power, “Let me live in my house by the side of the road, where the races of men go by- They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong, Wise, foolish – so am I. Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat, or hurl the cynic’s ban? Let me live in my house by the side of the road, and be a friend to man.”