During the month of February we honor Black History and we want to highlight one important member of the civil rights movement from Oklahoma, Clara Luper. She was one of the first people to conduct sit-ins in order to receive fair service and equal treatment from a business. We continue to recognize that all people must be treated equal in our society. As the national media looks at Arizona where a bill has been passed allowing businesses to deny services to any person based on the religious beliefs of the business owner. History shows us what happens when we refuse to treat all humans as being created equal.

Today we honor Clara Luper who in a 1998 interview discussing the Katz Drug Store sit-ins: “I knew I was right, because somewhere I read in the 14th Amendment, that I was a citizen and I had rights, and I had the right to eat. Within that hamburger was the whole essence of democracy. If you could deny me the right to eat, you could deny me the right to live or work where I want.”