involved. >> throughout the weekend, american history tv is featuring ann arbor, michigan. our local content vehicles recently travelled there to learn about its rich history. learn more about ann arbor and c-span's local content vehicles, at c-span.org/local content. you're watching american history tv, all weekend. on c-span 3. >> at the direction of congress, the voices and experiences of the civil rights movement of the mid 20th century are being documented in an oral history project, a collaboration of the smithsonian museum of african-american history and culture. the library of congress and the southern oral history program at the university of north carolina chapel hill. in this interview we hear from marilyn hildreth who was eight years old when they infiltrated an oklahoma drug store lunch

counter. she talks about her mother's activist role in the movement, her personal bravery and how oklahoma city changed rather peacefully, compared to other american cities. >> thank you for welcoming us, it's a real honor and pleasure to be with you. thank you. >> thank you for coming. >> we're interested obviously to hear about your, to begin, about your mother. of course we'll want to hear much from you about your own experience directly. as you were right in the middle of all of what happened in the late '50s, early '60s here in oklahoma city. could i ask you to talk about your mother? >> i would love to. that's a good starting point. my mother has been an educator most of her life. she had an opportunity to teach at dungy high school, which is

in spencer, oklahoma. some of us call the country. young people have never, ever had any opportunities to see anything but their immediate environment. mom wrote a play called brother president. the story of martin luther king jr. and the young dungy, were able to role it and produce the play. a guy by the name of herbert wright was here in oklahoma city and saw the play and invited the group of young people to the naacp national convention, to produce "brother president." . everyone was so excited. but by her being a history teacher, she decided to give us a lesson in history. before brother president, if you could walk with me through the

streets of oklahoma city, during that period of time, we could go down in downtown oklahoma city and shop in any store, but you could not try on a hat. you could not try on shoes. when my grandmother went to buy me shoes, she had to take some thread and tie a knot in it to determine the size shoe that she would buy for me to wear. you could not eat in any restaurant. you would have to go to the back of the restaurant and they would pass you a brown bag. come on and keep walking with me in oklahoma city. we could not live across northeast 7th street in oklahoma city. we could not use the same telephone booth, one was earmarked white and the other colored. we could not even drink out of

the same water fountains. and i could continue on and on. but i just want you to feel where we were coming from in this period of time. so the advisers and young people involved in "brother president" got together and said, okay. mom i'll tell you what we're going to do, we're going to go on the northern route and come back the southern route. everybody was so excited. when that trip started and we started to new york city, something happened. for the first time in our lives, we'll able to go and sit down and drink a coke in a restaurant. we were able to go in the same restaurant as everybody else and eat an hamburger. we were able to drink out of the samg water fountain as other folks, we had never seen

anything like this. because 100% of the people on that trip, the young people, had never been out of oklahoma. so we felt that that's the way it was supposed to be. in oklahoma and the united states of america. oh, we went to new york and we had a wonderful time, the experiences and being able to tour all the great historical monuments there. >> you were about 11 years old? >> no, i was younger. i was younger. what happened was -- on our way back, we came back the southern route. and faced the age of discrimination. the same thing that we felt that we had to go through and found that if we didn't, we were slapped in the face with again. used to tell us, a little bit of

freedom is a dangerous thing. when we came back to oklahoma city, we were all gung-ho and ready to go. we had had that taste of freedom. and we started negotiating with the restaurants here in oklahoma. city and they tell us that they didn't want to deal with us. and it kept going on and on and it seemed like forever to me. i was eight years old at the time. that's how i can remember that i was not at 10 years old. and i, we were talking about our experiences and our negotiations and i suggested, made a motion that we would go down to the drug store and just sit. just sit and sit until they

served us. needless to say, a lot of people were not happy about it. and as a matter of fact, they were actually some of them were really mean to us. they would spit on us. they would kick us. they would call us names. they would tell nigger, go home. but that didn't deter us. and most of the young people, the 13 original sitters, young people, we didn't know fear, at like we know now. we thought we were on a job and on a mission and somebody that we had to do. so we continued to go back and we continued to sit in. and as you know, we went from restaurant to restaurant to restaurant. until the walls of segregation started falling down in oklahoma city. oh many interesting things happened. >> i want to ask you for

example, katz's -- >> katz desegregates its lunch counter in a couple of days. >> yes. >> a couple other businesses do the same. >> in fairly quick order. >> yes. >> how did that feel? and what -- what did that suggest to you about your activism and its prospects. >> that the walls came tumbling down. we were on a mission. that mission would not be complete until every restaurant in oklahoma city would allow people of color, and would not discriminate because of the fact that they were black. your mother, as a leader of this group. what was the approximate age range of that 13 children that night at katz? >> six to about 16.

>> your mother would become such a focal point and such a leader in the next six years in all of the protest activity. all of the direct action. i'm interested, your thoughts about her as a woman, in that role of leadership. of course most of the local hierarchy of every other sort would have been male. >> at that particular time, i did not look at it like that. my mother came from a very interesting family. her father was a dreamer, and my mother was a dreamer. my mother was a reader, an educator. and she believed that we as a race of people could not advance unless we were educationally equipped. i laugh, because a lot of kids would get a lot of toys for

christmas, we would get books. it's something she believed in. and when she believed in something strong enough, she would go to the end of the world for it. i often wondered, i often wondered where she got her strength from. for me to sit here and tell you it was easy for her, they tried to fire her from the school system. people in the white community hated it. people in the black community did not want to be associated with it it was not easy during that time. >> how did she hang on to her job? >> god. as a matter of fact, there's something you don't know. they had it come to a teacher in the dungy school system to promote him and to become principal. he could become principal. the only job he had to do do was

fire clara lucko. that's the only thing he it to do to become principal. he did not do it. >> interesting. >> as the history, you look back over the time, the road that she's come. it was hard, it was difficult. one thing about it, i just love to death, you could knock her down, but you could not keep her down. and she would tell the kids and she would prepare us to participate, in the sit-in movement. by teaching us the nonviolent movement. the social change, what could happen if we would do this and we would do that. we could not win with violence. every morning we had the same lesson. she would tell us, if you're not tough enough, go to the hardware store and buy you some tough skin and get tough. because life is not fair, you must be prepared. that's what she taught us.

she taught us about gundy and the nonviolent movement. we had to learn the steps. we had to learn how to be free. >> let me ask you another thing about your mother. this is so interesting. in your mother's memoir and autobiography about that era. she says at one point, i was very struck by this. she says that she wasn't really a person to feeling too much fear. and yet, she encountered so many situations and many of them were full of risks and dangers and aggressive hostile people. i'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about your mother's who she was organically and how that related to the role she played as an activist. >> my mother came from -- >> a leader. a place called hoffman,

oklahoma. she would always say that she was top in her class. she was in the top five of the class. but there was only five students in her class. she did not have the same textbooks in hoffman as they had in other schools. they had the leftover books. and she would tell me when they were start reading the story and get to page 9, the page would start again at page 21. for years and years i would ask myself, where did my mom get that toughness. >> i've seen her in the adversities she's been through. then i started thinking -- really thinking. i thought about her father, i thought about her mother. i thought about her brother, the dad, because he was not allowed to be treated in the hospital,

only because that he was black. i think that it was that basic foundation and the strong belief in god that gave her the added strength. she would say, what happened to my brother, no child deserves that. so she continued and she fought with injustice, as long as she could. i'm going to tell you something. i think that during this whole crisis, i've only seen my mother face fear once that i can remember. and i know there must have been many times, but the time that impacted me the most. we were coming home from a freedom rally. >> because all the kids, could you look at them. we rode, anyway, a whole carful of people all the time.

we were coming home from this rally and we noticed that a group of white guys, men, were behind us in old pick-up trucks. i thought they were just going to pass us, or whatever. and the closer that we would get to home, our destination, the closer they were following us. this spokesperson for the nacp youth council a young lady who is now a professor at the university of georgia, by the name of barbara posey. her father is a big man. when i say big, he was a big man. mom told carolyn and i that these people are following us. and this is what i want you to do. when i turn this corner on northeast 14th.

i'll be blowing my horn and i want you to run up to the poseys and knock on that door as hard as you can. i don't know what these guys want, whatever they want, it's not right. now do you understand me? don't, don't say anything, but do exactly what i tell you to do. open that door, i'm going to drive up there as slows klose to the steps as i can get. and run and knock that door down. >> and that's what we did. >> when we did that and they let us in that house, my mother drove away. i think that's one of the greatest fears that i've ever had. because my thought was, well, will i see my momma again? is it worth it that my mother would not come back to us? or every time i think about that, i say thank you god for

the experience and thank you for letting my mom come back home to us. >> i want to ask you about your mom's relationship with a couple of different sets of folks. one is your family, you were members of which church? >> fifth street baptist. >> can you talk about your mother's relationship with your pastor and the community of the network of black pastors in the city? >> she was loved by some, she was feared by some, and disliked by some. that's just the way it was. >> and the reasons were? >> fear. we met at the churches, we would meet at, many of them were threatened. some of the congregation didn't want us there, because they were scared that the church would be

bombed. but then those are the -- people that stood up. stood up as you know, by being an historian, that you are, that the civil rights movement here was based on the small people, the have-notes, the maids, the garbage workers. we did not have a lot of the professional black people involved. because of the fear of losing their jobs. and even my grandmother was a made. and my grandmother in order to educate my mother and her two other siblings, moved into the servant quarters and during the civil rights movement, my grandmother was still a maid.

with the nickels and dimes and the sweat and the tears. but then those that were committed to the movement, were committed. we used to say, i ain't going to let nobody turn me around and that's what we did. and some of them had to write notes. the strategy, they didn't want to physically be seen, becoming involved in it. somebody had to stand up. >> i want to ask you about your mother and youth counsels and all the sort of the whole community of folks who took action. the relationship of that community to the local police department, we talked on this before. we began our filming today. i'm interested in the role of law enforcement in all of those

many, many protest moments. oklahoma city on balance was relatively free of heavy violence. >> we had some small incidents of violence, but i think that oklahoma city consciously made a decision that we did not want to become the focus point of america. through the violent aspects of it. and we had a good relationship with the police department, mom was only arrested 26 times. she was not beaten up. you know, we were arrested. but i think somewhere along the line that oklahoma city leadership knew that they was doing a great injustice to all

its residents. and that's why i think we did not have any violence, because the good people decided, okay. that protest, i don't know what happened, but we're not going to be part of it. you had some of the people that were kind of mean. guy threw a chimpanzee on me. >> i'm going to ask you just to say that again, and explain it in a little more detail. someone hearing it later might not understand that you're being literally truthful about that. >> i'm being truthful, we were protesting, picketting, i want my freedom. walking around and a man threw a cham pan city on me, a chimpanz chimpanzee, i was very small then. i i'm a little heavier now. but i was very small then and the chimpanzee was almost as big

as i was. that was not a good day that was not a good day. >> i want to ask you a couple of things about your mother, and ask you, you were a child, really. where do you think ultimately your mother's political savvy came from? she seemed to be a very skillful manager of all of the issues that needed to be managed. to move forward in a successful way. did she have innate skills in that area? did she have, do you think it was part of -- what she had studied, historian, do you think -- do you think she had key allies who helped her debate those issues and come up with good strategies in i'm interested in your perspective on that. >> i think it was all of the

above. her hobby was to read congressional records. now who reads congressional records every day? that's what she did. we have thousands of congressional records where she's underlined the high points. she knew everybody, from everybody. here in oklahoma. people that can make a difference and people that could not. she knew and, she was like the voice of the people. when they had problems, when they had, problems became struggles, when their hope was lost, they came to her. nothing just happens. i think that she was groomed in history for her day. >> can you talk a little about your dad, and his relation to all of this. >> well, my mother and dad got

divorced at an early age, right in the midst of it there was a lot for him to handle. he was an eelectrician, he fun-loving, you would have loved to have around him. he was always laughing and joking. the real pressure that he couldn't handle. that's what i really think, we never discussed it. he died a few years ago. but it was just, i think too much for him to deal with. >> tell me about when you think back through those, all of those protests, all of those long repeated difficult protests for years what are some of the things that stand out in your

memories, midwest important things to tell someone about all of that. so they understand the essence, if it can be explained any shorthand way, i'm not sure it can. >> it can be. every saturday of my young life, it was spent protesting. why did not have the joys of going to amusement parks, because they were not open to us. and even after they became open, most of the young people that participated in the sit-ins did not have the money to even attend the amusement parks. the closeness of the young people that the participated in the movement throughout not just oklahoma, but throughout this nation is one thaw can't really understand unless you were there.

we celebrated our 50-year anniversary here and young people came from all over the united states to be a part. standing room only. >> and they would start telling about their experiences and what they remember. we made recordings, anything that we can, because i'm so glad that we're sitting down here in oklahoma city. because if we had not set down in oklahoma city, young people throughout this nation would not have stood up. and when we think about it, it's like a whirlwind effect. we didn't realize the importance of what we were doing. we just wanted to make the social changes here, but little did we know that it would have the whirlwind effect and change

american history. >> let me ask about one last major theme. 12972, your mother ran for the united states senate. in '72 you were how old? >> i don't know how old. >> older -- >> older than -- >> yes, yes. tell us about it's no small undertaking. and i'm interested to have your recollections about that effort. >> it was a lot of fun. i enjoyed joining her on the political campaign. because you can't outdebate mom. because you're not going to

outread mom. and she's going to be totally focused on whatever she's discussing. whether it's the governmental system. if you start talking about government, she's been studying government for the last 50 years. or the educational system, because she taught for 40 years. it was well-versed in all the issues. and she would go to meetings, in little bitty small towns, towns that are as big as this couch. no black folks, would say the same thing as she traveled throughout the state. and people of all races, and creeds and colors were surprised that she was doing that. but they supported her. i think she had this a little bit longer. a little bit more time year was different in history. she would have elected, she

would have made the greatest change that oklahoma would have ever seen. >>. you remember primary day. >> sure, we lost, but that's okay. like she said, that's okay, we tried. >> do you remember what percentable of the vote she pulled, do you remember? >> no, surprisingly, though, it was more than people thought she would throughout the stay of oklahoma. is i can't remember right now,'s it's been a lot of water under the bridge. >> did she ever consider taking any other public office? >> no, i can't answer why. it was her decision. >> to conclude today, we're going to talk a little bit about the sanitation workers strike in the city, in the summer of '68. and your mother served as spokesperson, can you share some recollections about that

episode? the sanitation workers represented a segment of our community that were overworked and underpaid. i often wondered why she was selected as a spokesperson and i add some of the sanitation workers, why she was selected. and they, i was told that she understood the problem. she would be honest and choose a woman of integrity. and if she said something, she would stand back and fight to strike, i think they thought the end was coming, too, because on that black friday and oklahoma city has never seen anything

like it did that day, but it helped change the city and helped change it because i think there's somewhere, somewhere we started to understand that so goes one of us, so goes all of us, and if you fail, i fail, and if i fail, you fail. we're all in this fight together. the other thing is that i think my mom represented people that just couldn't represent themselves. you asked me was she afraid? not that i know of, and she taught me this, and she said to me every day, first of all, she would wake me up in the mornings and say do you want to continue

your education today, that's number one. and in the evening she would say when we would complain about anything, she would always have made us learn this to believe in the rain when the rain didn't fall and to believe in the sun when the sun didn't shine and believe in a god that you've never seen. that's who clara luper is. american history tv will be at the soldier's national cemetery at gettysburg national military park in pennsylvania, this coming tuesday, to cover the commemorative ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of abraham lincoln's gettysburg address. speakers include civil war his t orrian and author james mcpherson and sally jewel. watch the ceremony thanksgiving day, thursday, november 28th