美国国家公共电台 NPR--How a history teacher and 13 Black students shaped the civil rights movement

How a history teacher and 13 Black students shaped the civil rights movement

Transcript¹

Sixty-four years ago Friday, 13 Black students sat at a whites-only lunch counter in downtown Oklahoma City, shaping the course of the civil rights movement.

Other sit-ins, like the Feb. 1, 1960, protest by four Black college at Woolworth in Greensboro, N.C., were better known in the fight to end segregation².

But 17 months earlier, on Aug. 19, 1958, Clara Luper, an Oklahoma City history teacher and NAACP Youth Council adviser³ led the group of younger students to a Katz Drug Store. Ten-year-old Marilyn Luper Hildreth, her oldest daughter, was one of them. She spoke⁴ to NPR about the memories of that day.

"When we sat down they asked us what do we want, and we told them we wanted to be served and they informed us that they didn't serve coloreds," Hildreth said. "So, we just sat there until they decided⁵ to serve us."

Under Luper's advice, the students remained seated and quiet, even as white customers yelled, cursed and spit at them.

"When people would spit on us our responsibility was to turn our heads and keep our cool," Hildreth said.

After three consecutive⁶ days of action, Katz Drug Store served the 13 Black children and integrated its lunch counter.

A 10-year-old got the idea from her travels North

Hildreth didn't just participate in the sit-in — she initiated⁷ it. She got the idea from an eye-opening trip to New York City with her mother.

Luper was one year into her role as an NAACP Youth Council adviser when she took several students to New York City to perform a play she wrote, Brother President.

"In many ways I think my mother was a genius," Hildreth said. "She planned for us to go the northern route and you have to understand that Oklahoma had some of the most segregated⁸ laws on their books."

For many students, it was the first time they had left Oklahoma. In the South, because of Jim Crow laws, it was their first time experiencing restaurant and hotel service.

"As Harriet Tubman would say, 'A little bit of freedom is a dangerous thing,' " Hildreth said.

Hildreth wanted the same treatment in her home state.

"We were in a NAACP Youth Council meeting and I made the motion that we would go down to Katz Drug Store and sit down until they served us," she said.

That is what they did.

Oklahoma remembers Luper's legacy⁹

Clara Luper's success ignited a series of sit-ins and marches across Oklahoma, and she quickly became a notable civil rights activist¹⁰, ran for the U.S. Senate and continued to teach. State residents refer to her as the mother of Oklahoma's civil rights movement.

She advocated for human rights and racial equality until her death in 2011, but her contributions to the civil rights movement have rarely been credited or acknowledged — until now. Last year Oklahoma City launched Freedom Fiesta, an annual three-day celebration honoring Luper and the legacy of the Katz Drug Store sit-in.

"We're going to make sure that history reflects what we did here in Oklahoma City," Hildreth said.

Eleven of the 13 children who sat at the counter 64 years ago are alive today and continue to tell Luper's story. Hildreth said she is confident her mother will gain broader recognition one day.

"She would say all the time, 'I want you to believe in the sun when the sun didn't shine and to believe in the rain when the rain didn't fall and to believe in the God that we've never seen,' " she said. "That's the way that she would want to be remembered."

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 segregation   

n.隔离，种族隔离

参考例句：

• Many school boards found segregation a hot potato in the early 1960s.在60年代初，许多学校部门都觉得按水平分班是一个棘手的问题。
• They were tired to death of segregation and of being kicked around.他们十分厌恶种族隔离和总是被人踢来踢去。

3 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 consecutive   

adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的

参考例句：

• It has rained for four consecutive days.已连续下了四天雨。
• The policy of our Party is consecutive.我党的政策始终如一。

7 initiated   

n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入

参考例句：

• He has not yet been thoroughly initiated into the mysteries of computers. 他对计算机的奥秘尚未入门。
• The artist initiated the girl into the art world in France. 这个艺术家介绍这个女孩加入巴黎艺术界。

8 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

9 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

10 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。