CHARLES GASHAM JONES
 
            “FORGOTTEN” FATHER OF OKLAHOMA CITY

During and shortly after the land run days of 1889, throngs of people poured into the new Oklahoma Territory searching for the opportunity of a new beginning and a better life.  Although drought, severe winters, crop and bank failures plagued them in the beginning, most of the settlers who had “stuck it out” would realize the opportunity that they had dreamed about.

News of the land run had spread across the country and tales of vast acres of fertile farmland for the taking was the talk of the day.  A young enterprising farmer, rancher and mill operator in Greenup, Cumberland County, Illinois by the name of Charles G. Jones was intrigued by this opportunity and decided to sell his holdings and move to the new Territory in December of 1889.  This was a bold move for a married and established thirty four year old, but this man had no fear of failure.  Born only a few miles from the farmstead of Abe Lincoln, at age eight, he was counted on by his family to assist in supporting his mother and seven brothers and sisters due to the death of his father.   By the time he was fourteen, he was shipping stock to Chicago, Indianapolis, and St. Louis and would later become recognized as an established young rancher and farmer in the area.

Upon moving to the new Territory, he settled in Oklahoma City and built the first flourmill in the Territory.  The mill was originally designed to use waterpower that would be provided by the construction of a canal from the Canadian River along an old creek bed that ran through the City.  Charles Jones and Henry Overholser invested a lot of time and money into this project.  The canal project failed to divert the river water due to the sandy, permeable soil present in the bottom of the canal.  The mill was then converted to utilize a modern steam powered roller process and produced products that won first premium at the 1893 World’s Fair (Colombian Exposition) in Chicago.  He also won first premium that year for wheat grown in the “Nine Mile Flat” area northeast of Oklahoma City.  These awards firmly established the Oklahoma Territory as a great wheat producing area.  Ironically, this crop may have never come to fruition if it were not for C. G. “Gristmill” Jones.  He persuaded the Rock Island and Santa Fe railroads to provide seed wheat for many of the new settlers in 1892, since there was not enough seed wheat available and most settlers were broke.  Some were not as severely affected by the drought and harsh winters as others but most of the new Territory farmers would have perished if this had not been arranged.  The flourmill burned down in 1897 leaving Jones broke and deeply in debt.  Most would have taken advantage of the bankrupt law but he chose to pay off all of his debts and did so within a few years.  During this same period, Mr. Jones was elected to the First Territorial Legislature in 1890 and re-elected as Speaker in 1891 on the Republican ticket.  He was instrumental in adopting the laws that would govern the Territory.  He also drafted Oklahoma’s first paving law which eventually made Oklahoma City a modern city with miles of paved streets.  He was first elected Mayor of Oklahoma City in 1896.

After his mill burned in 1897, Charles Jones turned all of his interest to railroads.  He had a vision to extend the railroad from Sapulpa to Oklahoma City, create a hub around Oklahoma City and then southwest to Quanah, Texas.  Virtually broke, he did not have the money to travel to St. Louis to promote his project.  Mr. Jones finally persuaded Henry Overholser to loan him $150 to make the trip.  Jones and Overholser had teamed up on many ventures in the past and this was no different.  Jones provided the legwork and organizational skills while “Uncle Henry” provided a large part of the financing.  He became President of the St. Louis and Oklahoma City Railroad (later known as the Frisco Railroad and present day Burlington Northern) in 1898 and began to realize his dream.  Also, he served his third term in the Territorial Legislature in 1898 as chairman of the ways and means committee and railroad committee.   His association with the railroad made him a wealthy man.  In those days, having the railroad run through your town meant certain prosperity.  The town of Glaze was so appreciative to have the railroad through their town that they changed the town’s name to Jones City in his honor in 1898.  Along the way he founded and platted many town sites and later sold lots in these sites to stave off his debt he incurred in building the railroad.  He founded and platted the town of Mustang in 1901 and started the first bank in the town.  Also in 1901, he was elected to his second term as Mayor of Oklahoma City.   He had total control of where the railroad would be built but he was not for sale.  Stories had been told that while laying the track between Lawton and Snyder, he was offered a large sum of money to lay the track through Mountain Park.  He refused and stated that he would make more money from the town site of Snyder and the grade was better.  Another story told was that after listening to an early pioneer woman describe the hardships and sacrifices her family had endured in order to help establish the town of Altus, he decided to run the railroad through the town.  He was largely responsible for building over 500 miles of railroad within the borders of the state.  During this time he continued his love for farming by owning and operating a 700 acre fruit farm near Mustang and an 800 acre farm near the town of Jones City.  The farm near Jones City produced two trainloads (twenty eight cars) of oats, corn and watermelons in 1906 and was the largest shipment of agricultural products ever produced in the state at the time.  

Building the railroad through southwest Oklahoma and his vast farming interests demanded much of Mr. Jones time until 1905 when he chose to champion an unpopular cause-Single Statehood.  Prior to statehood, there was a strong belief that the Oklahoma Territory should enter the Union as a state but not to include the Indian Territory.  Even though Jones had a limited education, he believed that a proper education was one of the most important things in life.  He knew that if the Indian Territory was left out of statehood that there would be no schools and no educational means to teach the white man’s world to the Indians.  It was thought that statehood could mean the end of the American Indian and their culture.  Even though that would be tragic, Charles Jones felt it would be even more tragic not to include the Indian in plans for statehood and not to provide them with the necessary means for survival.  He was somewhat alone in his belief for a single state when he decided to chair the Committee for Single Statehood but as he continued to voice his opinion, his supporters grew and the Twin Territories were admitted to the Union as a single state in 1907.  Jones had made many trips to Washington to petition the President for statehood.  Governor Haskell honored Mr. Jones for his work toward Single Statehood by asking him to represent Mr. Oklahoma Territory in the mock wedding between Mr. Oklahoma Territory and Miss Indian Territory on Statehood Day.  The support Mr. Jones gave to this cause was also costly.  Some who opposed Single Statehood never forgot their defeat and probably prevented C. G. Jones from being elected Governor in 1910. 

The following is an excerpt from an article written about C. G. Jones in 1910.  Mr. Jones had just made an address to a little gathering in one of the counties that was unorganized until the coming of statehood, when a little old white haired Cherokee woman approached him and said, “Mr. Jones, I have heard of you, I have read of you, I have followed your work in the struggle to obtain joint statehood, that we might have the benefits of civilization, that we might have public schools, and that the riches of this section should be devoted to giving an education to the children of this Territory who have had no opportunity to learn, have been denied the advantages that the children of the states possess, and who have been growing into manhood in ignorance.  You have led the fight that has brought statehood, and it is the happiest time of my life to know that my seven grandchildren can now go to school, for it has been the principal wish of my life to see these little grandchildren have a chance to get an education.”  With tears streaming down his cheeks, this strong man said: “Madam, what you have just said to me repays me for all the time, all the money I have spent, for all the sacrifices I have made, and for the personal disappointments I have encountered in this prolonged struggle to get statehood and its attendant blessings for the people and their descendants.”

Love for his fellow man was probably the biggest asset in Charles G. Jones’ character.  He always had a sympathetic ear for struggling humanity.  The humblest man in the state could get a hearing at his office as easily as the greatest.  He was a man who got things done.  Ninety days prior to the opening of the first State Fair of Oklahoma, Mr. Jones became the first President of the State Fair Association, raised over $100,000 and had all the buildings built and opened on time.  He felt that having a place to exhibit the products and resources of the entire state was very important in that first year of statehood.  Governor Haskell honored him for his contributions towards establishing a state fair in Oklahoma by having Mr. Jones and his young son Luther “throw the switch” to officially begin the first State Fair of Oklahoma.  Jones also served in the State Legislature the first two years after statehood.  He was instrumental, from the very beginning, in moving the Capitol from Guthrie to Oklahoma City.  As soon as the statewide election was held and affirmed the move, Governor Haskell ordered that the State Seal be brought immediately to the Huckins Hotel in Oklahoma City.  No one seems to know how the State Seal got from Guthrie on that Saturday night to Oklahoma City the next day.  Some stories center around the following theory.  Since the townspeople of Guthrie constantly guarded the Capitol building, it is believed the seal left the building wrapped up in laundry and was transported to Oklahoma City by train or by automobile (one other account is it left by mule).  The automobile (a new Cadillac) that carried three State officials to retrieve the State Seal, was provided by the Oklahoma City Trade Club.

Jones was largely responsible for implementing and completing the construction of some 2800 schools in the old Indian Territory within two and one half years after statehood.  His interest in education had already led him to contribute large sums of money in establishing Epworth University in 1904 (presently Oklahoma City University) while he served as President of the Oklahoma City Trade Club (presently the Chamber of Commerce).  He was running for a third term as Mayor of Oklahoma City in 1911 at the time of his death.  Mr. Jones’ association with the diversified interests of the Territory and State had been so interwoven with its growth that his public record had been co-existent with the early day record of Oklahoma.  C. G. Jones loved Oklahoma and Oklahoma loved C. G. Jones.  On the afternoon of his funeral, all state government offices and all Oklahoma City government offices as well as most businesses were closed and over 1,200 people attended the services.  The Chancellor of Epworth University conducted the funeral services and he was eulogized by such men as Henry Overholser, John Shartel and Anton Classen.  They all agreed that no man had given more to ensure the success of the State of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City than the Honorable Charles G. Jones. 

​Information compiled and written by Randall E. McMillin, VP of OKCCHS Board of Directors

For more information on donations to our C.G. Jones statue campaign please click here

----CHARLES GASHAM "GRISTMILL" JONES Time Line----
 
Born: November 3, 1856, Cumberland Co. Illinois
Married: Tena Stafford prior 1889 in Illinois (died 1901)
Married: Nettie Wheeler 1909
Children: 1 son- Luther Jones, born 1895
Died: March 29, 1911
 
 
1890-Built first flourmill in O.T. (Oklahoma City)-Steam power/roller type
 
1890-Served on First Territorial Legislature-Oklahoma Co. Representative
 
1891-Elected to second term in Territorial Legislature-Speaker
 
1893-Chicago World’s Fair-1st Place- Flour and Wheat-grown in Nine Mile Flat, N.E. of Oklahoma City
 
1896-First Term as Mayor of Oklahoma City
 
1898-Elected to Territorial Legislature
 
1898-Glaze, O.T. changed name to Jones City, O.T. in his honor
 
1898-Became President of the St. Louis and Oklahoma City Railroad
 
1901-Founded and platted the town of Mustang, O.T.
 
1901-Elected Mayor of Oklahoma City
 
1905-Chairman of Single Statehood Committee
 
1906-Produced largest shipment of agricultural products to date from 800 acre farm near Jones City
 
1907-Founded and became first President of Oklahoma State Fair Association
 
1907-Served on First State Legislature
 
1908-Elected to second term in State Legislature
 
1910-Instrumental in moving State Capitol from Guthrie to Oklahoma City
 
1911-Running for Mayor of Oklahoma City at time of death
​

Protests, marches, and displays of attention are not an uncommon thing for Oklahoma. Beginning as early as the Boomers, civil unrest has found its way into our fair state. Led by David Payne, these Boomers lined the edges of the Unassigned Lands with demonstrations, encampments, and and protests. Inspired by Boudinot, Payne began his efforts to enter and settle the public domain lands as allowed by existing law. He returned from his job in Washington and returned to Wichita in 1879. On his first attempt to enter Indian Territory, in April 1880, Payne and his party laid out a town they named "Ewing" on the present-day site of Oklahoma City. They were arrested by the Fourth cavalry and returned to Kansas.

Later that same year Oklahoma would see its first coal workers strike. The national Knights of Labor sponsored the first union in Indian Territory when they organized coal miners in 1882. As leader of the coal miners' union in Indian Territory and early Oklahoma, Peter Hanraty stressed negotiation as the means for resolving most labor conflicts, but he recognized that strikes were often necessary. After almost six weeks of fruitless negotiations, Hanraty helped organize a strike. On May 10, 1894, he led a march involving about one thousand people from the Lehigh and Coalgate area to a mine owned by the Williamson Brothers, because work there had continued. Almost fifty women carrying banners were in the lead, followed by nearly one hundred miners with rifles and shotguns. They were followed by the Coalgate Band. Most of the remaining demonstrators, including children, carried clubs. No violence occurred, and the Williamson Brothers agreed to stop work.

In the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement hit Oklahoma hard. Unfortunately, Oklahoma took part in the grotesque Jim Crow Laws. The Youth Council of the NAACP, led by history teacher Clara Luper, began the lunch counter sit in movement, that would later become a national form of protest. The Youth Council had been to New York City to perform their play, Brother President, for the national NAACP. There the children had their first taste of what integration and desegregation was like. Upon returning to OKC, the children came to their sponsor, Luper, to formulate a plan following Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's plan for non-violent protest. The youth council decided on five locations to begin their protests: Katz Drugstore, Veazey’s Drugstore, S.H. Kress, John A. Browns, and Greens. Clara Luper described John A. Brown’s as the Bunker Hill of the sit-in movement. The sit-ins here went on every day for five years. Finally, the movement was becoming an organized community effort, upsetting false assumptions, and old traditions. Luper took the brunt of the white community’s anger about the sit-ins. She received bomb threats, someone broke into her house and burned all her furniture and clothing, and received hundreds of threatening telephone calls.

In 1990, Oklahoma teachers protested and went on strike for better pay. On April 17, 1990 more than half of Oklahoma's 36,000 teachers went on strike closing nearly a quarter of the state's school districts. Chanting and carrying signs, thousands of teachers and their supporters converged on the State Capitol and other nearby state buildings after the State Senate killed an education bill that would have included pay increases. Estimates ranged from 5,000 to 15,000 demonstrators at the capital.The Oklahoma Education Association, the union that called the walkout, said about 20,000 teachers, or 60 percent of the state teaching force, were off the job Tuesday. That's about 4,000 more than the first day of the strike. Ms. Garrett estimated the walkout has affected about 60 percent, or 343,200, of the state's 572,000 students.Teachers are venting their frustration over the Legislature's failure after an eight-month special session to enact a $230 million school reform and tax plan that contains money for teacher raises.

And the protests continue. This year, on January 21, 2017, more than 12,000 women, men, and all manner of Oklahomans took to the state capitol to join in the International Women's March on Washington. Originating as a women's march, the event began to morph to encompass all manner of grievances of citizens from treatment of women, to teacher pay, to LGBTQ issues, to issues of race, religion, and other social and cultural causes. One definitive narrative cannot be pinned down for this march other than it became a movement for those who felt disenfranchised by the state and government. Marches in London, Washington DC, and New York City drew 500,000+ people to the demonstrations. Globally, the marches went off without a hitch, with no violence or vandalism perpetrated. For many Oklahomans this was an important march for them to participate in and to be connected to a greater cause.
​
The right to protest and peacefully assemble was seen as quintessential to the growth of the nation and right of governance by the people and so it was incorporated into the First Amendment. The First Amendment was written because at America’s inception, citizens demanded a guarantee of their basic freedoms. Our blueprint for personal freedom and the hallmark of an open society, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition. Without the First Amendment, religious minorities could be persecuted, the government might well establish a national religion, protesters could be silenced, the press could not criticize government, and citizens could not mobilize for social change.

African American history reflects the remarkable changes in the way scholars imagine the West. While there is much written on African Americans in the South and history of the Freedmen are making their way to the forefront, histories on civil rights in Oklahoma appears to be lacking. Danielle McGuire’s At the Dark End of the Street, Jimmie Lewis Franklin’s Journey Toward Hope: A History of Blacks in Oklahoma, and Arthur Tolson’s The Black Oklahomans: A History each specifically address civil rights, racism, and the legal system in Oklahoma. Thankfully, autobiographies such as Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher’s A Matter of Black and White and Clara Luper’s Behold These Walls give valuable insight into the fight for equality in Oklahoma. McGuire takes an in depth look at the origins of Civil Rights and the important role that women played while Arthur Tolson investigates all Oklahomans that helped further the movement. Journey Towards Hope is a personal story of people and the contributions they made to improve their lives and their communities, improving their country in the process. With help from these historians, autobiographies, archival collections, newspapers, and journal articles, a clear portrait of the intense fight for racial equality in Oklahoma can be painted.
   
Education would be the first line to be cross in the fight for equal rights in Oklahoma. After a long and egregious battle the Supreme Court ruled on January 12, 1948, in Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, that Oklahoma must provide Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher with the same opportunities in education as other Oklahomans.[1] This also led to a lawsuit, brought about by Thurgood Marshall and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), to eliminate the doctrine that formed the basis for state-sanctioned discrimination and in turn the US Supreme Court struck down the ‘separate but equal’ actions that were being practiced in lieu of her admittance. In the next three decades, civil rights activists, such as Clara Luper and Ada Lois Sipuel-Fisher, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophies of non-violent protest to challenge the inequality in Oklahoma.[2]        
 
Founded by Oklahoman Roscoe Dunjee, the NAACP sought to challenge the principles of legal segregation. The Brown v. Board of Education decision established a precedent for future lawsuits against unjust law aimed at African Americans. This could only work when African Americans, working alone or in local groups, faced the dangers of crossing racial obstacles. Black activism became the only way to extend equality from the schools to every day life.[3] In 1948, the NAACP decided to make a test case against segregation in schools in Oklahoma and one woman was willing to accept that challenge.[4]         
           
Ada Lois Sipuel was born in in 1924 in Chickasaw, Oklahoma. She graduated at the top of her high school class in 1941. Although she had a happy childhood, she was not immune to the tales of racism and violence that ran rampant in Oklahoma.[5] The last recorded lynching in Oklahoma happened in Chickasaw. An innocent teenage boy, Henry Argo, had been falsely accused of rape and attempted murder. A mob of 2,000 turned up at the Grady County jail to lynch Argo. An angry mob swarmed the jail with the intent of exacting their punishment on the boy. The lynch mob finally reached Argo and where they shot and stabbed the boy to death and left him to die.[6] No one was ever prosecuted in the case.
           
After high school Sipuel left Oklahoma to attend college at Arkansas A&M. She spent one year there before returning to attend Langston University, where she graduated with honors in 1946.[7] Ada had dreams of becoming a lawyer one day, but unfortunately Langston did not have a law school, and state laws barred African Americans from going to state universities. Instead, Oklahoma provided funding whereby black students could attend law schools and graduate schools that accepted blacks outside of the state of Oklahoma.[8] At the encouragement of Roscoe Dunjee, Fisher agreed to seek admission to the University of Oklahoma [OU] law school in order to challenge Oklahoma's segregation laws and achieve her lifelong ambition of becoming a lawyer.[9] On January 14, 1946, she applied for admission to the University of Oklahoma College of Law.
          
Norman had long been known as a sundown town. In fact, many residents boasted about how blacks knew better than to hang around in Norman.[10]  Fisher knew she would never get accepted on her first application to OU and this was part of the NAACP’s plan to challenge legal segregation in Oklahoma.[11] Dr. George Lynn Cross, the university's president, agreed to meet her and Roscoe Dunjee. Cross had his dean of admissions review Fisher's credentials in which he later advised her that although she more than met the academic requirements for admission, state law forbade him to allow her entrance to OU on the premise that blacks and whites could not attend classes together.[12] The laws also made it a misdemeanor to instruct or attend classes comprised of mixed races. Cross could have been fined up to fifty dollars a day, and the white students who attended class with her would have been fined up to twenty dollars a day.[13] Fisher and Dunjee did not seem surprised at his response, but rather requested to have the dismissal in writing. What they wanted specifically was to have the document state that she was denied admittance to her race and this would form the platform for their legal action against school desegregation.[14] State officials had previously briefed Cross on how to handle any African American students that attempted to gain admittance to OU. Reportedly the discussed response to give black students was that Langston was not an accredited university and therefore on that basis were not eligible for enrollment at OU.[15]
       
On April 6, 1946, Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher filed a lawsuit in the Cleveland County District Court and in turn began a three-year legal battle. The NAACP sent down Thurgood Marshall to join the Amos Hall in the defense of Fisher.[16] Cleveland County court saw no reason to oppose the decision of the university and denied her case.[17] She then appealed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which sustained the ruling of the lower court. They decision asserted that the state's policy of segregating whites and blacks in education did not violate the federal constitution and was in accordance with the state constitution of Oklahoma.[18] The court also claimed that it was the duty of Langston University and the Board of Regents for Higher Education’s responsibility to provide African Americans a law school and facilities for instruction equal to those enjoyed by white students but that it was the Regents were entitled to reasonable advance notice of the intention of black students to need such facilities.[19] Fisher and the NAACP found this to be unacceptable and were fully prepared to take their case to the highest courts.[20]
           
With defiance and justice in their hearts, Fisher and her team of attorneys filed suit with the US Supreme Court. On January 12, 1948 the nation's highest tribunal declared the lower courts to be wrong. They stated that in the case of Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma that Oklahoma must provide Fisher with the same opportunities for securing a legal education as it provided to other citizens of Oklahoma.[21] Remanded to the Cleveland County District Court, they were instructed to carry out the ruling. They did not. It was at this time, that six other African Americans attempted enrollment at OU and were denied admission on the same basis. Out of these six, the NAACP chose George McLaurin as an additional candidate to submit briefs to the state courts challenging state sanctioned discrimination.
           
Although the Supreme Court ruling was in favor of Fisher, the state legislature, rather than admit Fisher to the Oklahoma University law school decided to create a separate law school exclusively for her to attend.[22] The new school, named Langston University School of Law, was a haphazard, poorly put together school that only took five days to put together and was set up in one of the State Capitol's Senate rooms.[23]
           
To Fisher, this substandard school was an affront to her and the education she sought. She refused to attend Langston University School of Law. They had provided only three professors and not near enough time to develop an adequate plan of study. On March 15, 1948, her lawyers filed a motion in the Cleveland County District Court contending that Langston's law school did not provide the advantages of a legal education to blacks substantially equal to the education whites received at OU's law school.[24] The argument was that this inequality entitled Fisher to be admitted to the University of Oklahoma College of Law.[25] Unfortunately, the Cleveland County Court ruled against her again arguing that the school was, in fact, equal.[26] Not to anyone’s surprise, the Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld the ruling.
           
After this second unfavorable ruling, Fisher's lawyers declared their intent to appeal to the US Supreme Court. Oklahoma Attorney General Mac Q. Williamson declined to return to Washington, DC and face the same nine Supreme Court justices in order to argue that Langston's law school was equal to OU's law school.[27] It was apparent that the US Supreme Court would hand down the same ruling as before, ordering them to provide Fisher access. Due to their unwillingness to return to Washington DC, this concession led to the decision to allow Ada Lois Sipuel admission to the University of Oklahoma College of Law. More than three years after she first applied for admission, on June 18, 1949, she was admitted. Langston University's law school closed twelve days later.[28]
           
Fisher did not experience much racism from her fellow classmates. In fact, many personally introduced themselves and offered her congratulations on her admittance welcomed her.[29] However, in class she was forced to sit in the back of the room in a single desk behind a wooden railing with a large sign that read “Colored”.[30] Even though black students could now be admitted to OU, separate eating facilities, bathrooms, classroom seating, and even seating at school sporting events pervaded. These conditions persisted through 1950.
           
On June 5, 1950, the US Supreme Court decision in the case of McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, the Court ruled that the restrictions of segregation imposed on McLaurin at OU impaired and inhibited his ability to study and were therefore illegal.[31] The unanimous decision meant that no longer could classes be segregated at OU. This also required for admittance to graduate programs in all state-supported colleges and universities in the nation.[32] This was the beginning of the end for segregation in Oklahoma. Regents and lawmakers alike saw that no longer could they create separate and subpar education for African American students seeking higher education. In her autobiography, A Matter of Black and White, Fisher states:
           For two and a half years on intense litigation, I had been the guinea pig, the    
           slender, almost shy “colored” girl from a small rural community who dared 
           challenge the power and resources of the sovereign state of Oklahoma. The
           litigation was finally over. As I sat alone in one of the enormous classrooms
           of Monnet Hall, I realized I was still the guinea pig.[33]
 
​After a strenuous four years, Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher achieved her Master’s degree in law. She went on to have a successful career as lawyers, became a department chair at Langston University before retiring in 1987 as the assistant vice president for academic affairs. In 1992, Governor David Walters posthumously righted the wrongs afflicted on Ada Lois Sipuel by appointing her to the Board of Regents at the University of Oklahoma. She the person to ever be awarded the Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in the school’s history as was Dr. George Lynn Cross.[34] Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher braved a fight not many could have handled, let alone a “skinny black girl”.[35] She became a role model not only for African Americans, but women as well. With the help of the NAACP and George McLaurin, Fisher broke down educational walls in Oklahoma to allow a higher education for many other African American students in the future. It is hardly ever acknowledged how she was a woman willing to take on a fight that no man had the guts to do till several years later with George McLaurin. Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher became Oklahoma’s first female civil rights leader.


[1] Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Collection, Research Division Oklahoma Historical Society
[2] Clara Luper, Behold these Walls [Oklahoma City: Jim Wire, 1979]: 10.
[3] Clara Luper Collection, Research Division Oklahoma Historical Society.
[4] Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher, A Matter of Black and White: The Autobiography of Ada Lois Sipuel [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996]: 78.
[5] Fisher, A Matter of Black and White. Referencing the lynching of teenager Bennie Simmons, who was taken from Caddo Co. jail by a mob, strung up off a bridge, covered in coal oil, and then shot over 100 times by the gathered mob: 44.
[6] Fisher, A Matter of Black and White, 46.
[7] Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Collection, Research Division Oklahoma Historical Society.
[8] Aldrich, Gene. Black Heritage of Oklahoma [Edmond: Thompson Book & Supply Co., 1973]: 33.
[9] Fisher, A Matter of Black and White, 75.
[10] Cross, George Lynn. Blacks in White Colleges: Oklahoma’s Landmark Cases [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975]: 5; Fisher, A Matter of Black and White, 77.
[11] Aldrich, Gene. Black Heritage of Oklahoma [Edmond: Thompson Supply & Co., 1973]: 37.
[12] Aldrich, Black Heritage,  36.
[13] Aldrich, Black Heritage, 38.
[14] Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society Research Division.
[15] Burke, Bob and Justice Steven W. Taylor. “Humble Beginnings of the OU College of Law,” Oklahoma Law Review 62, no. 383 (Spring 2010): 388; Cross, Blacks in White Colleges, 39.
[16] “Negroes Call New York Lawyer to Push University Test Case,” The Daily Oklahoman, March 5, 1947.
[17] Ada Lois Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, F. 29-1-3, (Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma, 1946). “State Attacks Negro’s Stand on OU Entry,” The Daily Oklahoman, January 15, 1947.
[18] Sipuel v. Regents; “State’s Supreme Court Bars Mixed Classes at OU, Orders Separate Negro Law School,” The Daily Oklahoman, January 18, 1948.
[19] Cross, Blacks in White Colleges, 45.
[20] “Negroes Plan Appeal to US in School Case,” The Daily Oklahoman, April 30, 1947.
[21] Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, OK 17, 190 P.2d 437
199 Okla. 586 (1948).
[22] Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society Research Division.
[23] “Judge Upholds Negro Ban at OU, Decides Law Colleges ‘Equal’,” The Daily Oklahoman, August 3, 1948; “Langston Law School Branch Created Here,” The Daily Oklahoman, January 20, 1948.
[24] Fisher, A Matter of Black and White, 126.
[25] Cross, Blacks in White Colleges, 132; “Negro Law Student for OU in Prospect Under Court’s Ruling,” The Oklahoman, January 13, 1948.
[26] Franklin, Jimmie Lewis. Journey Toward Hope: A History of Blacks in Oklahoma [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982]: 79.
[27] “Negro School Case Delayed,” The Daily Oklahoman, July 17, 1948.
[28] Fisher, A Matter of Black and White, 152; Cross, Blacks In White Colleges, 196.
[29] Fisher, A Matter of Black and White, 146.
[30] Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society Research Division.
[31] McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 US 637 (1950).
[32] McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 US 637 (1950).
[33] Fisher, A Matter of Black and White, 146-7.
[34] Fisher, A Matter of Black and White,186.
[35] Fisher, A Matter of Black and White,146.



Written by Lauren Riepl, Board Director OKCCHS

Feliz dia de los muertos! Enjoy this little short to happily introduce to some and rediscover to others the cultural heritage of our hispanic community in OKC. 
he multi-day holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died, and help support their spiritual journey. In 2008 the tradition was inscribed in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

Scholars trace the origins of the modern Mexican holiday to indigenous observances dating back hundreds of years and to an Aztec festival dedicated to the goddess Mictecacihuatl. The holiday has spread throughout the world, being absorbed within other deep traditions for honoring the dead. It has become a national symbol and as such is taught (for educational purposes) in the nation's schools. Many families celebrate a traditional "All Saints' Day" associated with the Catholic Church.

On October 31, All Hallows Eve, the children make a children's altar to invite the angelitos (spirits of dead children) to come back for a visit. November 1 is All Saints Day, and the adult spirits will come to visit. November 2 is All Souls Day, when families go to the cemetery to decorate the graves and tombs of their relatives. The three-day fiesta is filled with marigolds, the flowers of the dead; muertos (the bread of the dead); sugar skulls; cardboard skeletons; tissue paper decorations; fruit and nuts; incense, and other traditional foods and decorations.

Today the deceased are celebrated by the tradition of their relatives and loved ones sporting festive masks and dancing in their honor. Sugar skulls are made with the deceased in mind, usually with their name on the head, and wooden skulls are made and placed on altars that are dedicated to the deceased.

The third annual Day of the Dead Celebration in Plaza District kicks off today. It is free to the public and a wonderful opportunity for people to learn about our Hispanic citizens and their heritage. This is third year for the Day of the Dead Festival, which drew over 6000 attendees in 2015. The event runs from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the 1700 block of NW 16th St between Indiana Ave and Blackwelder Ave

The walking procession is to honor the traditional procession held in Mexico City, which holds the world record for the most people decorated as Catrinas or Catrins. In addition, there will be a contest for hand- pulled wagons or strollers decorated for Day of the Dead and a contest for the” Best Catrina” and “Best Catrin”. Erika Reyes, the owner of the district’s Everything Goes Dance Studio, will be honored as the Grand Marshall. The procession will begin at 4 p.m.

There is an all day celebration in the Plaza District of OKC with information linked below.
http://www.plazadistrict.org/…/11/1/day-of-the-dead-festival

Photo credit: J Pat Carter Getty Images
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We are happy to announce the launching of our new webpage. With this new site we will have a greater ability to serve the community in promoting historic preservation, outreach and community understanding when it comes to OKLAHOMA CITY. 

The Oklahoma City/County Historical Society is one of kind and hopes to one day open a museum focused on the preservation, building and production of a wide ranging collection of Oklahoma City's rich history.

With its establishment in 1971, the OKCCHS now holds an extraordinary collection of artifacts and documents focused on our city's unique past. It contains over 100,000 newspaper clippings, still photographs, books, maps, documents, artifacts, architectural remnants and other unique items that showcase the past.

Hopefully with the continued support of donors and our citizens we will be to preserve and display our history for many generations to enjoy.

More events, information and blog posts will be coming and we thank you for your continued support Oklahoma City.