In this 2022 photo, Joyce Jackson, Marilyn Luper Hildreth, Gwenda Roberts and Joyce Henderson listen to an announcement of a sculpture and monument to commemorate the sit-ins led by civil rights activist Clara Luper at Katz drug store in Oklahoma City. Photo: Sarah Phipps/The Oklahoman

As she sat at a segregated lunch counter in 1958, Marilyn Hildreth had no idea that a monument and plaza commemorating that very moment would one day grace the very spot in downtown Oklahoma City.

At that time, the teen only knew she wanted a Coke and she and 12 other courageous young Black people held a sit-in to challenge the racist Jim Crow laws that kept them from enjoying a soda at the Katz drug store lunch counter.

Hildreth was elated when the Oklahoma City Downtown Design Commission recently approved design plans for the Clara Luper Sit-In Plaza at Robinson and Main, moving the project one step closer to fruition.

The highlight of the plaza will be a $3.6 million bronze monument commemorating the Aug. 19, 1958, sit-in at the Katz lunch counter, led by Hildreth's mother, civil rights activist Clara Luper. The plaza site at 59 N Robinson is where the Katz drug store once stood. The monument will feature sculptures of Luper, the lunch counter, the 13 children participating in the sit-in and the waitress who refused to serve them.

"If we don't tell our story, who's going to do it?" Hildreth said.

Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt shared similar sentiments.

"We're finally telling all of our city's stories in a permanent and prominent way," he said. "Completion of this monument and the plaza will definitely be a highlight of 2025."

Holt appointed the Rev. Lee Cooper Jr. and John Kennedy as co-chairs of the committee tasked with commemorating the historic sit-in.

Plaza has been in the works since 2018

A senior planner for the Downtown Design Commission said a building permit for the plaza could be issued in early February. Cooper said the committee hopes to see the plaza completed by Luper's birthday.

"We are on a very tight time schedule, but the hope is to complete it by May 3," he said.

Both Cooper and Holt said the plaza will be a visible way to tell the story of Luper and the NAACP Youth Council sit-in that she led at Katz. The sit-in at the downtown drug store and subsequent sit-ins led to the desegregation of other Oklahoma City businesses and restaurants.

"This is an amazing project that has been in the works since 2018, and I am so excited that we are another step closer to reality," Holt said.

"This project makes an important statement about our community."

Cooper said it is important to tell the story of the first Oklahoma City sit-in because many people think the sit-in movement started in Greensboro, North Carolina, however the movement started by Luper occurred first.

"So, what we're doing is claiming that history that belongs to us, history that is positive, not only for Oklahoma City, but also for the nation," he said.

Plan details

A sculpture of Clara Luper, created by sculptor LaQuincey Reed for the bronze monument at the Clara Luper Sit-In Plaza, was shown during an artist’s reception in 2022 in Oklahoma. Photo: Doug Hoke/The Oklahoman

According to the design plan submitted to the Downtown Design Commission, some existing paving, plantings and large stones will be removed from the project site, which sits between a corporate tower and the Internal Revenue Service building. Cooper said three large egg-shaped stones and a fountain that are currently there will remain at the site.

A limestone paver plaza will be installed, along with the life-sized bronze sculptures recreating the Katz lunch counter scene. According to the project design plan, 8-feet-tall angled stone walls containing storytelling panels also will be added. Cooper said the sculptures will be in the center of the plaza.

He said some of the sculptures will be sitting, while others will be standing, and one bar stool, made out of another material, will be empty so that young people who visit the plaza may realize how young the sit-in participants were and perhaps imagine themselves taking part in the historic movement.

"The attempt was to make sure that we could commemorate this event and also be respectful of foot traffic that could pass through the plaza and not be obstructed, and then also to make sure that people could interact with the statue," he said.

Kennedy said he was proud of the work that the project committee had done to get the concept of the plaza and monument to this point. He said it was important to note that the plaza is privately funded.

"We purposely didn't rush this process," he said of the project.

"We also just made a commitment early on to make sure it was authentic, historically authentic — and it is."