Unit 6 Coming of Age

Integrating Higher Education Cracks began to appear in the wall of segregation which separated white students from African-American students in the state in the late 1940s. Ada Lois Sipuel, a Langston University honor graduate from Chickasha, was denied admission to the University of Oklahoma School of Law in Because of the segregation laws passed by Oklahoma’s first legislature, school officials were under penalty of fine and/or imprisonment if they admitted her to a “white” school. In 1948, the United States Supreme Court ruled that African-American students must be provided the same education privileges as white students, so the state legislature established the “Langston University School of Law for Negroes” in the State Capitol Building.

Higher Ed cont. Subsequently, George W. McLaurin, former Langston University faculty member, was admitted to the University of Oklahoma Graduate School, but he was required to sit in separate areas and even to eat at a separate cafeteria table. In 1950, the United States Supreme Court ruled in McLaurin vs. Oklahoma Board of Regents that segregation within the university put McLaurin at a disadvantage and violated his 14th Amendment rights. The decision initiated the complete desegregation of higher education in Oklahoma and was the first in a series of decisions which brought about desegregation of higher education across the nation.

The Korean Conflict Just five years after the end of World War II, another war was declared in Korea. The 45th Infantry Division was mobilized and sent to Japan for training The 45th Infantry gained so much territory that the Chinese communists marked them as a formidable enemy and began sending larger and larger units of force to overcome them. On one occasion, an officer of the 45th, who was a music teacher in the public schools in civilian life, listened carefully to the Chinese bugle signals during battle. At the next attack, when the Chinese infantry was crossing a field in the open, he played their “retreat” signal on a captured Chinese bugle. His rendition sounded so authentic that the Chinese buglers thought it was an order and repeated it. Mass confusion occurred among the advancing communist troops, giving the Thunderbirds, who were outnumbered eight-to-one, the advantage they needed to stop the attack and destroy the Chinese formation. In April, 1954, the Thunderbirds came home. Once again, they had proved that the 45th Infantry Division could get the job done.

Governor Johnston Murray Johnston Murray, was sworn into office on January 8, 1951, by his eighty-one-year-old father, former Governor William H. Murray. Johnston Murray was born on July 21, 1902, at Emet, Chickasaw Nation His mother was one- eighth Chickasaw Indian, making Murray the first Oklahoma governor of Indian descent.

Governor Raymond Gary Raymond D. Gary, born on a farm between Madill and Kingston, was the first governor born in Oklahoma after statehood. He was born January 21, 1908., Governor Gary had campaigned on road building issues, Gary announced that he would build 2,500 miles of highways in Oklahoma. In 1956 the Federal-Aid Highway Act was passed by Congress, providing for an interstate highway system. Three such highways were scheduled to run through Oklahoma, all of them crossing Oklahoma City — Interstate 35 going north and south, Interstate 40 going east and west, and Interstate 44 going northeast and southwest. With the aid of the federal legislation, Gary not only achieved his goal, but exceeded it. By the end of his term, 3,500 miles of highways had been completed in the state.

Better Schools Amendment The desegregation issue had reared its head during Roy J. Turner’s term of office and again during Johnston Murray’s term of office. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that all types of educational segregation were unconstitutional. Incoming Governor Gary made it clear that he intended to comply with the laws concerning segregation, and he set about to do so immediately. The first step was a constitutional amendment which reorganized the funding of schools. The Better Schools Amendment, passed by the people in 1955, abolished separate funding systems for African American schools and white schools. Although it did not disappear right away, Jim Crowism was on the way out. Governor Gary carried desegregation into the Capitol Building by integrating washrooms and drinking fountains.

Dean A. McGee In 1956 an Oklahoma oil company entered the international financial market when its stock appeared on the New York Stock Exchange. Kerr-McGee stock made its debut on February 23, and Robert S. Kerr bought the first 100 shares traded. By the end of the day, 5,300 shares had been sold. One of the most important changes was the hiring of a young geologist named Dean A. McGee in When James Anderson retired that year and sold his interest to Kerr, the new sole owner began looking for a key man to help run the company. Kerr’s main interest lay elsewhere, and his talent for hiring good people to work for him was certainly at its sharpest when he hired McGee.

McGee cont. In 1947 the company drilled the first successful offshore well out of sight of land. At 9:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, October 4, 1947, more than 10 miles from the nearest land, the small Oklahoma company hit oil with the first well drilled in open water, and at the amazingly shallow depth of 1,500 feet. By 1958, Kerr-McGee had grown large enough to be listed by Fortune magazine in “The 500 Largest Industrial Corporations” in the United States. On June 23, 2006, Kerr-McGee was merged into Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum.

The Edmondson Administration. Tulsa attorney J. Howard Edmondson was inaugurated as governor in January, At 33, he was the state’s youngest governor in history. One of Edmond son’s promises was that he would either enforce or repeal prohibition, and he did both. Raids were made all across the state on bars and nightclubs which were illegally serving liquor. People who were accustomed to having access to liquor despite prohibition and who consequently had never seriously considered the matter, found that true prohibition was more than a little inconvenient.

Prohibition Repealed With prohibition enforcement in the daily news, on television and radio, and constantly on the front pages of the newspapers, it appeared that most of the state’s sheriffs and police departments were engaged in full-time “bar busting.” Who was going after the “real” criminals? Many people who had favored prohibition to protect the state’s young people were persuaded that regulations were better than prohibition. Under normal circumstances, prohibition could not be enforced adequately, and any teenager with the right information and enough money could buy liquor. With repeal of prohibition, it was reasonable to assume that the bootleggers would be out of business, and state regulation of bars and nightclubs would keep most young people away from “demon rum.” State leaders prepared a referendum proposal for repealing prohibition. It established an Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which would be responsible for licensing liquor stores. On April 7, 1959, the question was given to the people in the form of an election. The question carried 386,845 votes to 314,830 votes, and the 21st Amendment was added to the Oklahoma Constitution. The legislature passed the Liquor Control Act, and the first package (liquor) stores opened on September 1, 1959.

Largest City On October 31, 1961, Oklahoma City became the largest city in the United States. On that date, the City Council annexed 42.7 square miles of land, making Oklahoma City the city with the largest land area — square miles. The second largest city, Los Angeles, California, was square miles. Now Oklahoma City has square miles, but it is no longer the largest city.

1 st Republican Governor Henry Bellmon accomplished what many people thought impossible in Oklahoma in He became the first Republican ever to be elected governor. Born September 28, 1921, in Tonkawa, he grew up in the Billings area, where he became a wheat farmer. Bellmon served in the Marines during World War II. Awarded the Legion of Merit and the Silver Star, Bellmon was Oklahoma’s most-decorated governor.

Bellmon On January 14, 1963, when Bellmon was inaugurated, he was younger than all but one previous Oklahoma governor, J. Howard Edmondson. Bellmon proved to be a hard-working governor. Even though he served with a Democratic legislature, more bills were passed during his administration than during any of the three previous administrations. After leaving office in 1967 and spending a short time at his farm, Bellmon became the second governor elected to the U.S. Senate.

Desegregation The most controversial issue of the day during Bellmon’s administration was civil rights. John F. Kennedy, who had been elected President of the United States during Edmonson’s term of office and who had had a hand in the appointment of Edmondson to the Senate, fostered a bill granting equality of citizenship and rights to African- Americans. Kennedy was assassinated in November, 1963, but Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 shortly after his death. A young African-American minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., was urging his people to nonviolent protest as a means of claiming their rights

Katz Drug Store The protest movement in Oklahoma City became active on August 19, 1958, when a group of teenagers led by their advisor, Mrs. Clara Luper, staged a sit-in at the lunch counter of the downtown Katz Drug Store. For 18 months prior to that date, the young people involved had studied nonviolent protest. They were determined to handle the matter non-violently. Within two days, Katz opened the lunch counters in its outlets in three states to people of all races, colors, and creeds.

Mr. Speaker On the national scene, U.S. Representative Carl Albert from Bugtussle, Oklahoma, achieved the highest office ever attained by an Oklahoman. Albert became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. A man of small stature, Albert wielded great power. He was known affectionately as “the Little Giant from Little Dixie.”

Governor David Hall David Hall was elected governor of Oklahoma in In 1975, just four days following the end of his tenure as governor, David Hall was charged by a federal grand jury on charges of extortion and bribery Hall was convicted on March 14, 1976, and sentenced to three years in the Swift Trail Camp Federal Prison outside Safford, Arizona, beginning on November 22, 1976.

Vietnam War American involvement in the Vietnam War ended early in The Vietnam War was a central issue of the presidential campaign of 1968, and the Democratic Convention in Chicago was fraught with protest and violence. Protestors and police clashed in the streets, and Americans watched their countrymen hurling insults and rocks at each other on the evening news. Statistically, the percentage of mental and emotional casualties was much higher after the war in Vietnam than following any other war in modern history.

Governor David Boren. Born in Washington, D.C., on April 21, 1941, Inaugurated on January 13, Boren was the first governor to receive more than 500,000 votes in an election. A few months older than J. Howard Edmondson when he took office, Boren was the second-youngest governor in state history. At the time of his administration, he was the youngest chief executive in the nation. Boren became the first governor in history to become divorced while in office In November 1994, after resigning from the U.S. Senate, David Boren became the thirteenth President of the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

Governor George Nigh George Nigh was born in McAlester on June 9, Nigh’s political career began in 1950 when he became the youngest member ever elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Nigh became the seventeenth governor of the state when he served out the last nine days of Edmondson’s term. On January 8,1979 Governor Nigh actually began his own elected term as governor. In his days as a junior legislator, Nigh persuaded the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein to allow Oklahoma to adopt their song Oklahoma! as the state song.

Nigh cont. In 1982 Governor George Nigh became the first Oklahoma governor to succeed himself in office. In January 1983, the state’s twenty-second governor began his second full term in office. However, not only had the governor served two of his own terms, but he completed terms for two other governors. He is thus the only person in state history to have served four separate terms of office as governor.

Pari-Mutuel Betting The horse racing industry has been alive and well in Oklahoma for many years. Oklahoma produces more race horses per capita than any other state On September 21, 1982, voters approved pari-mutuel betting by more than 125,000 votes. Nearly a million voters turned out for the election. Oklahoma became the thirty- second state to adopt some form of pari-mutuel betting.

Penn Square Bank On July 5, 1982, news of the failure of Oklahoma City’s Penn Square Bank rocked the financial world. Growing in a few years from a small consumer bank to one of the largest banks in the Southwest, Penn Square reportedly failed because of noncompliance with usual banking rules, especially in making loans. Many energy companies were among the bank’s customers, and some received large loans without enough collateral. Records revealed that some of the loans had been made long after oil prices began declining. The recession and a lack of sufficient collateral made it impossible for bankers to collect on loans due. A large number of the loans had been sold to other banks around the country. Many of those banks suffered losses or failed because of the Penn Square loans. Several uninsured depositors lost large sums of money in the failure, and businesses closed their doors or sold out as a result. The economy of the entire state, as well as that of some other states, was adversely affected by the failure of Penn Square Bank.

Governor Again Henry Bellmon, who in the 1960s became Oklahoma’s first Republican governor, became the first governor elected to two nonconsecutive terms. Elected the twenty- third governor of Oklahoma on November 4, 1986, he was inaugurated in Oklahoma City on January 12, 1987.

OKC Bombing At 9:02 on Wednesday morning, April 19, 1995 a homemade bomb inside a rented Ryder truck parked in front of the Alfred P. Murrah building had exploded, destroying the front half of the building, killing 168 people, including nineteen children, and injuring more than 800. The Murrah building housed most of the federal offices assigned to Oklahoma City and a daycare center for the children of federal workers and others in the area. It had been hit by a terrorist attack, something that people had thought would never happen in America’s heartland.

Bombing At 10:30 a.m. on that same day, Timothy McVeigh was stopped by highway patrolman Charlie Hanger on Interstate 35 near Billings because his car had no license tag. The patrolman discovered that McVeigh was carrying a gun. Shortly thereafter, McVeigh found himself in the Noble County jail. Within days, he was charged in the bombing deaths of the eight federal officers who died in the attack. An extensive investigation ensued, resulting in the arrest of Terry Nichols, a former army buddy of McVeigh. McVeigh and Nichols apparently believed that the American government had gone too far in an incident in Waco, Texas, on April 19, In an attempt to arrest cult leader David Koresh

Bombing cont. On June 2, 1997, a jury found McVeigh guilty of the deaths of the eight federal officers who died in the bombing and three weapons or explosives counts. On June 13, he was sentenced to die by lethal injection. McVeigh was executed at Terre Haute, Indiana on June 11, Terry Nichols was also found guilty; however, the jury could not agree on a sentence. Judge Richard Matsch sentenced Nichols to life in prison without parole.

Oklahoma Agriculture As the 20th century came to a close, some 84,000 farmers and ranchers operated in the state. Agriculture provided $6.1 billion to the economy annually. Oklahoma agriculture underwent dramatic changes during the last five years of the century. Perhaps the most notable change was the rapid increase in the production of hogs. Hog farms are both farmer-operated and company- operated, and they are located all across the state. However, northwest Oklahoma has most of the largest operations. Wheat is still the Number One cash crop in Oklahoma, although production has declined because of weak prices and drought.

Governor Brad Henry Brad Henry was officially sworn in as Oklahoma’s twenty-sixth governor on January 13, Henry supported an “Education Lottery” which was one of his most important campaign promises. The lottery was approved by voters in November 2004, and the first tickets were sold on October 12, 2005, at 5:05 a.m.