A man restores a statue honoring a lunch counter sit-in in 1958 Oklahoma during the Civil Rights Movement at the Clara Luper National Sit-In Plaza in downtown Oklahoma City on Dec. 8, 2025. (Photo by Emma Murphy/Oklahoma Voice)
I found myself greatly disturbed by the despicable act of vandalism to the new monument in downtown Oklahoma City designed to celebrate our city’s historic role in our nation’s sit-in movement.
As photos in The Oklahoman revealed, less than a month after the monument’s unveiling, someone used “ a key or a small pocket knife” to scratch nearly every bronze sculpture in Clare Luper National Sit-in Plaza, which commemorates the first peaceful protest of Clara Luper, an Oklahoma City Public Schools teacher, and 13 Black students…