“Mrs. Clara Luper, Youth Council adviser for the Oklahoma City chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, give instructions to a group of persons before they went out today to test the compliance by restaurants of the new federal civil rights law and also a new Oklahoma City public accommodations ordinance.” Image source: Oklahoma Historical Society.
The Local Learning Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium Team and the Restorative Justice Institute of Oklahoma invite you June 3-4 for an inspiring, interactive Professional Development Institute with invited experts and practitioners from restorative justice, education, oral history, and the arts.
- Learn new tools, resources, and restorative practices for teaching history today aligned to Oklahoma standards for Social Studies and History.
- Learn how to deliver standards-connected civics content that includes national and Oklahoma civil rights history.
- Meet invited speakers from the Clara Luper Institute who engage the current impacts of this Oklahoma teacher and hero.
- Tour Greenwood sites with local experts.
- …And remember why you fell in love with teaching in the first place!
Guest facilitators include Library of Congress staff who will be on site to facilitate a deep dive into primary sources meaningful to Oklahoma.
Location: OSU Tulsa campus, North Hall 140, the BOK Room
Institute Dates: June 3-4 2025 | 9:00-3:00
$25 includes all supplies and tour costs. Scholarships available.
About the Institute and the Faculty:
Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) is the Library of Congress’ premier educational program, focused on helping educators enhance students’ critical thinking, analysis skills, and content knowledge using the Library’s collections of millions of digitized primary sources. The Local Learning project team offers teaching tools and materials that engage the digitally available archival holdings of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress alongside local and regional collections, bringing them into conversation with each other to create a fuller, more complex narrative of American communities, history, and people.
Local Learning is a National Arts Service Organization that will bring their national faculty and local experts together to support this training opportunity.
Dr. Lisa Rathje is Executive Director of Local Learning. She directs teacher and artist training institutes and advocates for the inclusion of culture in diverse learning spaces. She consults nationally, including currently a 5-year consultancy for the REACH program of the University of South Florida funded by the U.S. Department of Education to strengthen arts and culture programming in the nation’s educational system. With Paddy Bowman, she is co-editor and founder of the Journal of Folklore and Education, an international, freely accessed, multimedia juried journal.
The Oklahoma State University Writing Project, a National Writing Project site, is dedicated to supporting both the teaching of writing and helping teachers see themselves as writers. We work with districts, schools and educators from Pre-K to college in sustained professional development centered around writing, literacy and the art of teaching.
Dr. Shanedra Nowell is an Associate Professor of Social Studies Education at Oklahoma State University. She taught middle and high school social studies and journalism courses before moving into higher education. Her research interests and publications include work focused on social studies education, Holocaust education, media literacy education, and content area writing.
The Restorative Justice Institute of Oklahoma seeks to empower Oklahomans to live restoratively by aligning their values, behaviors, and systems through healing, training, and circles. We train restorative leaders to transform unjust systems by first transforming themselves and support restorative educators to create learning environments that pivot away from a culture of punishment.
Xavier Graves is Executive Director of RJIOK.
Traci Gardner is an educator and social justice advocate with over two decades of experience in teaching, administration, and restorative practices. Currently serving as the Nurturer of Restorative Futures at the Restorative Justice Institute of Oklahoma, she collaborates with educators, conducts training, and advocates for youth-focused initiatives.
Library of Congress, American Folklife Center documents and shares the many expressions of human experience to inspire, revitalize, and perpetuate living cultural traditions. Designated by the U.S. Congress as the national center for folklife documentation and research, the Center meets its mission by stewarding archival collections, creating public programs, and exchanging knowledge and expertise.
Dr. Guha Shankar is Folklife Specialist in the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. He serves as project coordinator of Ancestral Voices, a collaborative curatorial initiative with indigenous communities and co-directs the national Civil Rights History Project.
Guest Speakers and Facilitators:
Joyce Henderson was a Dunjee High School student in the mid-1960s. She served as the song leader on Saturday mornings at Calvary Baptist Church when the city’s civil rights giants gathered to plan marches and protests across Oklahoma City. Her early work with the NAACP was helped by her relationship with one of her high school teachers, Clara Luper, who led thirteen children into Katz Drug store in Oklahoma for the nation’s first lunch counter sit-in demonstration. She also chaperoned Joyce and a large group of black students who attended the 1963 March on Washington where they heard Martin Luther King Jr., deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech. Clara became Joyce’s teacher, mentor, and personal guidance counselor. Joyce is featured in the “Children of the Civil Rights” Documentary Film along with others who participated in the sit-in movement in Oklahoma City.
Kode Ransom, a native of North Tulsa, is a historian, keynote speaker, and community leader deeply passionate about Black history and cultural preservation. Born into a single-parent home after the tragic loss of his father, Kode transformed his anger and curiosity into a lifelong pursuit of knowledge. Known as Greenwood’s Griot, he channels his talents in storytelling, music, and public speaking to share the rich history of Black Wall Street and Black innovation. Kode leads walking tours of the historic Greenwood District, also known as Black Wall Street, and delivers dynamic presentations on Black history, resilience, and community building. He incorporates creative storytelling and engaging visuals to connect the past with actionable insights for today.
Organizational Partner and Thought Leaders for this workshop:
Oklahoma Oral History Research Program is a research division of the Oklahoma State University Library with the focus of broadening archival inclusion of individual or communal memory and experiences representing Oklahoma and OSU history and culture through ethical oral history practice.
Dr. Autumn Brown earned her Ph.D. in Social Foundations of Education from Oklahoma State University where she is an Assistant Professor in the Edmon Low Library with the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program. Her dissertation was an educational biography of teacher activist Clara Luper (1923-2011) and Luper’s work with Oklahoma City’s NAACP Youth Council leading one of our nation’s first sit-in movements.
Image shows a tour for educators in Tulsa in 2024 with Kode Ransom.
Content created and featured in partnership with the TPS program does not indicate an endorsement by the Library of Congress.