OKLAHOMA CITY ( KFOR ) – The multi-day Freedom Fiesta begins Thursday at Oklahoma Contemporary.
It’s the annual celebration and commemoration of the 1958 Katz Drug Store sit-in and the 1969 Sanitation Strike, led by Clara Luper and the NAACP Youth Council in OKC.
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“In America, when you’re born black, you had to live black, and you goin’ die black. So, go to the hardware store and buy some tough skin,” said Marilyn Hildreth.
That’s a lesson Hildreth learned at a young age, from her mother Clara Luper, a civil rights leader.
On August 19th, 1958, Luper led 13 kids to a lunch counter at the Katz Drug Store where you couldn’t eat if you were black.
“They could go into Katz and buy anything they wanted, spend all their money, But if they got hungry, they had to get brown paper sack,” said Mildrth.
Hildreth was only 9 years old at the time. She was confused by the discrimination.
“Not knowing how person a grown up could spit on me, kick me, push me off a stool only because of the color of my skin,” said Hildreth.