Obituaries Archive

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Helen Hornbeck Tanner (1916-2011)

By
dbennie
– June 23, 2011Posted in: In The News, Obituaries

Helen Hornbeck Tanner, passed away on Saturday at the age of 94 in Beulah, Michigan. Helen was a distinguished scholar of American Indian history and literature, publishing books on the Caddo and the Ojibwa as well as on early eighteenth-century Spanish Florida.  Her crowning scholarly achievement in print Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History was the published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Her commitment to the development of scholarship by American Indians is symbolized by the “Susan Kelly Power and Helen Hornbeck Tanner Fund“, co-named for her, which supports work at The Newberry Library by Ph.D. candidates and post-doctoral scholars of American Indian heritage.

Helen graduated with distinction from Swarthmore College in 1937 and went on to complete a Master’s degree at the University of Florida (1948) and a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan (1961).  She taught at Michigan for several years but she was always proudest of her academic affiliation with the Newberry Library.

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Remembering Clara Luper, Oklahoma Civil Rights Leader and Educator

By
dbennie
– June 10, 2011Posted in: History of the United States, In The News, Obituaries

(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary provides a definition for the word “pioneer” that is: “soldier who builds things: a foot soldier whose duties include going ahead of the main company to construct things to pave the way for them.” It is no wonder then that Oklahoma civil rights activist Clara Luper is so frequently referred to as a “pioneer”. It fully encompasses who she was and what she did to change the face of race relations in the state of Oklahoma and beyond.

Luper, who died June 8 after a lengthy illness, was the Oklahoma civil rights activist who, in 1958, organized a lunch counter sit-in at Katz Drugstore in downtown Oklahoma City. Although police were called in and the media swarmed the store, Luper’s group of 13 demonstrators remained peaceful, and within mere days of the demonstration all 38 Katz locations in Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas and Iowa were desegregated.

A deeply virtuous leader and born teacher, Luper insisted on non-violence and worked to instill these values in the members of Oklahoma City NAACP chapter of which she was the leader. Ultimately, her efforts in Oklahoma led to the desegregation of hundreds of businesses. In the 1960s Luper was active in the civil rights movement on a national level. She was a high school history teacher until her retirement in 1991.

As a publisher so deeply rooted in Oklahoma, OU Press expresses gratitude to Ms. Luper for her courageous and tireless efforts on behalf of all Oklahomans, and, ultimately, the United States of American as a whole.

The Katz Drugstore demonstration, and the events leading up to it, are described in an entry within the book, An Oklahoma I Had Never Seen Before: Alternative Views of Oklahoma History edited by Davis D. Joyce and published by OU Press. The book is a compilation of stories about Oklahoma’s history submitted by various authors. Originally published in hardcover in 1994, the book was reissued in paperback in 1998.