The scene: the opening of the school year at Charles Page High School in the Tulsa suburb of Sand Springs. The time: August 1964. Nine Black students entered the building, opened their books and made history.
They became the first Black students at the newly desegregated school. The students were Dollie Chambers, Cortez Johnson, Marcia Jones, Calvin Long, Keith Robinson, Marvin Stewart, Betty Towns, Douglas Westbrook and Vicki Westbrook. They were members of the classes of 1965, 1966 and 1967, all transfers from the Sand Springs’ all-Black Booker T. Washington School.
On April 16, at its annual dinner, the nonprofit Sand Springs Education Foundation inducted all nine into the Sandite Hall of Fame. Only Long, Towns and Vicki Westbrook were alive to receive the honor, while the others received posthumous inductions.
Nine brave students
Bob Lemons, president of the class of ’64, and Betty Towns (Jackson) accepted the Hall of Fame plaque on behalf of the other recipients…