History in Our Everyday Lives

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 15.03.06

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Introduction
  2. Background
  3. Desegregation
  4. The Civil Rights Movement
  5. Nixon Era Federal Mandates and White-Flight
  6. State Standards
  7. Teaching Strategies
  8. Activities
  9. Bibliography
  10. Notes
  11. Appendix A
  12. Appendix B

Looking at Desegregation through Local Narratives: A Case Study at Tulsa Central High School

Patricia Leann Delancey

Published September 2015

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Introduction

The day my students and I first watched the segment of Eyes on the Prize about Little Rock High School’s disastrous year of forced integration, they all turned to me and said, “I thought this was about our Central, What happened here?” My internal response mimicked that famous phrase uttered by Homer Simpson “DOH!” The students gave me the task of finding out about the desegregation of our Central High School in Tulsa, OK.

In history, there is always the debate about who writes history and how does it affect its authenticity. The best way to fill in history is to use other narratives or stories such interviews, diaries, and personal accounts about history from a multitude of sources in addition to the official ones. With each new source we add a layer to history and we come closer and closer to the truth. Public history is the process of adding public, non-academic narratives to the academic history to get a much richer and vibrant history that begins to reflect other voices. Another aspect of public history is the idea that we live in our history every day. There is a Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd or a building from the art deco period of Tulsa’s history that we drive past every day. Mary Lui, Professor of American Studies and History at Yale University writes “What makes certain moments in our history worth remembering and commemorating in the form of family stories, public monuments, preserving in historic houses and libraries, or evoking in songs or film?”1 The answer to this question comes from looking at the first aspect of public history, the public narratives as well as the academic ones. This unit is about how these monuments, buildings and memorials are interpreted not only from the “at the time” perspective, but also from our point of view today.

In trying to understand the complexity of race relations and personal identity, looking at the experiences of others besides those told in the dominant official work is very necessary. In the wonderful series Eyes on the Prize, we began to see the narrative of the disenfranchised minority. We can’t stop there. Not every school had the experiences that Little Rock’s Central had. We must continue adding layers and finding the public voice in our own communities. In this unit, I want to use the story of Tulsa Central as the frame for understanding local desegregation processes. We will not freeze history in the 1950s or 1960s, but will use our voice to show timelines and stories well into the 1970s and even address the state of race relations today.

The history of Central High School pre-dates Oklahoma Statehood. Tulsa’s first school at the turn of the 20th Century was an Indian comprehensive school that allowed whites to attend. That school was granted independent status in 1905 as Central High School. In 1917, during the oil boom, construction was completed on the four story building that would be Central High (from now on referred to as” Old Central”). The English Renaissance style showed the wealth and privilege which included the underground pools, gymnasium, and running track. An extension area was added a few years later, which had tennis courts, manual arts and a business education center. In 1938, Old Central was the second largest high school in the United States, hosting around 5000 students.2 Now, our Central High is one of the smallest high schools in Tulsa Public Schools (TPS); the student body is only around 500 students today.3

As Old Central, the student body was white and Native American and there were programs and activities of all kinds. It was a nationally renowned school from which many famous, successful and wealthy Tulsans graduated. In contrast, Booker T. Washington High School (Booker T) was the all-black high school. Now, Booker T is the premier, largest, and most diverse school in TPS4, and a nationally ranked “Top School” by US News and World Report.5 Most of Central’s students now think that Booker T gets a disproportionately large amount of money and attention than all the other schools in TPS. What happened to reverse the roles? Even more important, how did those changes affect individuals, communities, and the whole history of Tulsa? Perhaps the answer can be found in the archives, records of federal mandates that came from the Civil Rights movement and oral histories as well as from the building itself.

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