Clara Luper

I am the chair of the Human Diversity committee for the University of Central Oklahoma Student Association(UCOSA). UCOSA is the student government at our university and the voice of the student body.

During my Fall 2016 semester in UCOSA, the current president and a past president of the Black Student Association(BSA) approached me with an idea that they had. 

At our university we have a building that serves as an alternative for a student union, the Nigh University Center. There are many rooms in the Nigh University Center that are dedicated to caucasian individuals that have impacted our state. The current president of BSA, Keyanna Irby, introduced me to a past BSA president, Jordan Broiles. Jordan and a few other BSA members spoke to me about wanting to renovate a room in the Nigh to be dedicated to civil rights activist Clara Luper. 

Clara Luper, a teacher and civil rights activist, is mostly known for her sit in movement leadership role in Oklahoma. Luper fought to end the segregation that existed in Oklahoma through nonviolent protesting.

The process of the room dedication was long. We first had to request money from UCOSA in order to pay for the remodeling of the room. After getting the money, we contacted people for photographs of Luper, and companies that could help with the remodeling.  We changed things like the carpet, paint, and even the wood work.

I was able to help with the remodeling process of the room and also the planning of the ribbon cutting ceremony.

The ribbon cutting ceremony was on Friday, February 24th 2017. Unfortunately the ribbion cutting ceremony was on the same day of one of the days that I was attending the Hatton W. Sumners Student Leadership Conference. I had the choice of not going to the leadership conference and to go to the ribbon cutting ceremony.

I chose to go to the leadership conference because I believed that by going to it, I could learn more about being a leader and help improve my college campus. After the ribbon cutting ceremony I had many people contact me about how proud of me and all the students that helped make the room dedication possible.

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