Re: Jim Crow In Oklahoma City
Thanks, Penny. Yes, perspective and blinders do matter. Back to the topic which started this whole thread, Jim Crow laws in Oklahoma City. I was pretty much unaware of the racial segregation problems going on in Oklahoma when I was a high school student in Lawton (I'm a LHS 1961 grad). My best friend was an Indian and I didn't even know it early on (with blonde hair, why should I?), Lawton's schools had been integrated for quite some time, doubtless due to requirements associated with getting military federal impact funding due to Ft. Sill for public schools. At the time, there was only one main and large high school, Lawton High, home of the Wolverines ... even though a much smaller, a black high school, did exit even though most blacks attended Lawton High. It was a huge high school with over 2100 students in three grades, and our graduating class was something like 650-750, I don't recall exactly. Heck, I was a young fellow dreaming about and wanting chicks, cool cars (I had no car at all, cool or otherwise), enjoying my school activities (band and debate), loving rock and roll, knocking around with buds in the Wichita mountains, and even getting a soldier from Ft. Sill to slip into a liquor store and get a bottle of cherry sloe gin on special occasions. Yes, I know how stupid the choice makes me sound, but since we're being honest here it's a confession that I must regrettably make. Racial problems were the furthest thing from my mind. The best player on our football team the year I graduated was a black young man named Hartwell Menifee, if I'm spelling his name correctly. I explained this a little in the introductory post to my Deep Deuce series called http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2006/11...Deuce Prologue.
At the end of that article, I said,
That story represented the end of my innocence, at least, that part of it.Stepping aside from non-personal evidence, I'll add this personal story. I was an Oklahoma State University debater from 1961-1965, a freshman in 1961-62. Toward the end of that school year, our Coach, Fred Tewell (father of the Edmond golfer Doug Tewell) intended to treat us to a nice dinner and night out in Oklahoma City. He had a place in mind, a great steak house at what is now at the south end of Frontier City ... the name alludes me today. Whatever its name, we parked outside and went in to be seated.
One (excellent) member of our debate team was a squeaky-clean young Black man, and he naturally entered the restaurant with the rest of us. On entry, and seeing our Black colleague, we were told that Blacks would not be served but that the rest of us were welcome.
In my lifetime, I cannot remember a time that I have experienced greater embarrassment or shame because of the color of my skin.
We left and drove into Oklahoma City and had great food at the old Sussy's Restaurant on Classen Boulevard. But, there is no way that this occasion will ever be a pleasant memory – it is as ugly as it is real – and Black people living in Oklahoma City from 1889 through the 1960's-1970's experienced this same thing and much worse on a daily basis.
While experiencing a walk through the history of this area [Deep Deuce], it is right to remember why the area existed in the first place - Blacks had no place else to go.
End of prologue. If you Black guys and gals want to welcome me as a White guy into your communion to share your pride, I'd be proud. But, I'll be and am proud of you, even if you don't.
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Originally Posted by Doug Loudenback
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