[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 30 (Thursday, February 13, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1065-S1066]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Black History Month

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, in 1924, when Oklahoma was a very young 
State, a young lady named Ada was born in Chickasha. Now, you would get 
that joke if you are from Oklahoma because we have a town in Oklahoma 
called Ada and a town in Oklahoma called Chickasha. This is a young 
lady named Ada born in Chickasha.
  She thrived. She was an excellent student. In fact, she was the 
valedictorian of her high school, Lincoln High School. She left that 
and went to college. She stayed 1 year at one college, then transferred 
to another college and graduated with honors in 1945.
  She dreamed of being a lawyer. She had graduated with honors. She had 
graduated valedictorian. She had all the credentials and all the 
capabilities to do it, but she had one big problem: She was Black. In 
Oklahoma in the 1940s, there were no law schools that would allow a 
Black student to attend. So, in Oklahoma, the policy was to help Black 
students who wanted to be a lawyer leave the State to study somewhere 
else.
  She really didn't want to do that. She had graduated from the great 
Langston University and had a great education there and had every 
ability to do that. She interviewed with the University of Oklahoma--
interviewed, actually, with the president of the school at that time--
to go through the process to get into the University of Oklahoma law 
school.
  She was found to be fully qualified, but the problem was, again, she 
was Black. And it wasn't just a problem with the University of 
Oklahoma. At that time, there was State law that did not allow Black 
students and White students to study together--and certainly not to 
study law together.
  So she did a radical thing. On April 6, 1946, she filed a lawsuit 
against the State of Oklahoma saying that she wanted to study law at 
the very good University of Oklahoma law school. A young lawyer took up 
her case, a gentleman named Thurgood Marshall, a young lawyer who later 
became Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Young Thurgood Marshall 
took up her case to argue in front of Oklahoma district court, where 
they lost, arguing it all the way to the State supreme court, where 
they lost, lost, lost. Then they took it into Federal court, saying 
that, constitutionally, neither the United States of America nor any 
State in the United States could block a student from studying law 
simply because they were Black. They won that case.
  Probably returning back to Oklahoma to study, the Oklahoma 
Legislature hurriedly put together a new law school and called it 
Langston Law School and opened up a room in the State capitol and put a 
few books there and said: There is your law school.
  Thurgood Marshall and Ada Fisher did not accept that--nor should they 
have--and started the process again of saying: We can't have a separate 
but ``equal'' law school in Oklahoma. They argued again in State 
courts, eventually ending up again heading all the way back to the 
Supreme Court.
  Before it got to the Supreme Court and Oklahoma would lose again in 
front of the same nine Justices, they determined that they would break, 
and they would give. On June 18, 1949, more than 3 years after she 
started the process of getting into law school, she was admitted into 
the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where she was given a seat 
in the back of the room with a sign directly in front of her that read 
``coloreds only,'' and she could sit in that row in the back of the 
room.
  In 1950, just the next year, those barriers would come down, and in 
August of 1952, Ada Fisher graduated from the University of Oklahoma 
law school and became a lawyer. She set the pace for thousands and 
thousands of others who are lawyers behind her now and get the chance 
of having that same joy.
  Interestingly enough, if you were to visit the courthouse in Oklahoma 
City, the Federal district court there--if you were there a couple 
years of ago, you would have bumped into Vicki Miles-LaGrange. That 
African-American judge, the pace was set for her by Ada Fisher. If you 
drop by and visit it today, you would bump into Bernard Jones, that 
African-American judge who serves there for the Western District of 
Oklahoma. The pace was set for him by Ada Fisher decades before.
  Quite frankly, we can't even fathom, in this current time period, how 
different things really are, but it is interesting to notice that time 
period and that generation and some ladies who really stood up and made 
a difference in Oklahoma because at the same time that Ada was at 
Langston University, another lady named Clara was at Langston 
University.
  We know her affectionately in Oklahoma as Clara Luper. Now, some 
folks may not know Clara Luper's name, but they know what she did. 
Clara Luper was at Langston University as well in the early 1940s. She 
finished her study, got her bachelor's degree there, went and got a 
master's degree, and continued on through the process. She became the 
Youth Council leader for the NAACP in 1957, and in 1958 she helped her 
students--her youth whom she worked with--do a really, really radical 
thing to deal with segregation in Oklahoma. She talked about 
nonviolence, and she talked about how to step out and take a stand. She 
and a group of kids went to Katz Drug Store in Oklahoma City and sat 
down at the counter and ordered Cokes. And they sat there all day, 
never being served--all day. It was the birth nationwide of what we 
know of as the sit-in movement, where young men and women who were 
African American would go and sit down at a place and just wait to be 
served. It started a movement that shook the Nation into this issue of 
segregation. Those two ladies made a remarkable change for the better 
in our history: Clara Luper and what she did; Ada Fisher and what she 
did.
  As we look back on tomorrow, Frederick Douglass's birthday, and we 
celebrate February as Black History Month, we realize how much history 
has really happened around us--just in the past 100 years even. We can 
go back as far as we want to and talk about the great Frederick 
Douglass and the influence he had on Abraham Lincoln and the influence 
he had on the Nation.
  Quite frankly, in Oklahoma, there are Black leaders today who are 
making history, and 50 years from now and 100 years from now we will be 
talking about them like we talk about Clara Luper and like we talk 
about Ada Fisher.
  We will be, 100 years from now, still talking about Russell Perry and 
the business work that he and his son Kevin have done in radio, what 
they have done in real estate, and what they have done in leadership in 
our State. Russell Perry was a barrier breaker. He was a cabinet member 
for a Governor. He has been a great leader and is a great leader in our 
State.
  We will still be talking, years and years from now, of Dr. Kent 
Smith, the current president of Langston University, and what he has 
done at Langston and the leadership model that he has in our State.
  For years, we will be talking about the members of the 1921 Race 
Massacre Commission and those individuals around Tulsa who have 
gathered around to say: What are we doing to help bring a community 
together and break down the barriers of segregation and of racism that 
still exist?
  We will be talking for years about Hannibal Johnson. He is a lawyer 
and a brilliant man, a historian, and a leader in his community.
  We will be talking for years about Wayland Cuban, an Oklahoma City 
police officer and a person who has spent a tremendous amount of time 
helping those around him and helping youth, especially those in 
trouble, to have a radical turnaround.
  We will talk for years about Terry Munday and what he has done on the 
radio.
  We will talk for years about pastors scattered all over our State 
that, in the African-American community,

[[Page S1066]]

have made a very real difference in the lives of a lot of families.
  We will talk for years, quite frankly, about Dr. Lester Shaw and what 
he has done at A Pocket Full of Hope and how he has helped so many 
kids. He has, for years, mentored students and has had a 100-percent 
success rate, year after year after year, of just loving on kids and 
helping them in every way he can. Dr. Shaw has made a remarkable 
difference in our State.
  We will talk for years about Clarence Hill and about what he has done 
for race relations in our State and how he is quietly bringing people 
together to sit down around a dinner table and develop friendships that 
should have existed long ago.
  We will talk for years about Stephan Moore and his family, what they 
have done in the inner city, what they have done to pull kids out and 
look at them eyeball to eyeball and give them a sense of hope and a 
sense of joy.
  See, in our State and around my city, Oklahoma City, where Frederick 
Douglass High School is, February is not just another month. We 
understand what Black history really means because we are living it 
with legacy-leavers like Ada Fisher and Clara Luper and so many others 
who have left such a mark.
  I am proud to say I have neighbors and friends all around me who 
continue to make history in what they continue to do in our State. I am 
grateful to call them friends, and I am grateful we have the 
opportunity to celebrate Frederick Douglass's birthday together.
  I yield back.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott of Florida). Without objection, it 
is so ordered.