The Christian Chronicle (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 76, No. 3, Ed. 1 Monday, April 1, 2019 Page: 18 of 35
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CURRENTS
18 APRIL 2019
THE CHRISTIAN CHRONICLE 19
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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: BALDWIN, MCGUIRE, GRIFFITH, REYNOLDS
j- 7
Honoring the
Oklahoma Christian 18
ERIKTRYGGESTAD
Terri Mays, a member of the 1 st and
Georgia Church of Christ in Chickasha,
Okla., sings during the remembrance.
violating curfew rules by attending
an all-night party. They felt the
punishment was racially motivated,
as white students caught staying
out too late were not immediately
removed from the college.
Instead of meeting with the
students, Baird told them they had
five minutes to leave, or else they
would be arrested. While a handful
of students close to graduation
or with difficult family situations
decided to leave, the 18 who
remained were arrested and booked
into the Oklahoma County Jail on
trespassing complaints. Sixteen of
the 18 arrested were black.
“I got a lot of hate calls for that,” she
told the Chronicle. Her parents per-
suaded her to spend the summer with
family in Chicago before returning to
study at Oklahoma State University.
The students found it extremely dif-
ficult to get access to their Oklahoma
Christian transcripts, they said. Some,
including Wilson, never returned
to higher ed. One student, Michael
Baldwin, was drafted into the military
30 days after he was expelled.
Some of the former students had
friends obtain copies of their grades
and send them to other institutions.
Wright transferred to another school
associated with Churches of Christ,
Pepperdine University in Malibu,
Calif., and later earned a doctorate
from Cornell University.
After his arrest — and before
returning to his family in Connecticut
Five of the students
could not be found or
did not respond to the
university's invitation:
• Johnnie Marie
Allen
— Wilson went back to Oklahoma
Christian’s campus and stayed there
through the end of the semester, living
in a friend’s dorm room and eating in
the college’s cafeteria.
No one seemed to mind, he said.
Administrators also
were unable to find
former student Paula
Smith, but a relative
saw coverage of the
remembrance and
• Loren Fisk
• Thomas Griffith
• Maureen McGuire
• Sarah Reynolds
James Burris did not attend the
—__—remembrance but
traveled to campus
JT '""-A recently to appear
y .js in a video about the
V anniversary.
ON THE MORNING of March 6,1969,
dozens of Oklahoma Christian
College students flooded Benson
Hall with hopes of speaking to then-
president James 0. Baird.
Among their grievances was the
recent dismissal of 14 students,
most of them black, accused of
THE AFTERMATH AND THE HATE
Once released, the students were
given less than an hour to collect their
things and leave campus, the students
said. The Oklahoma City chapter of
the NAACP, led by civil rights activist
Clara Luper, helped some of the out-of-
state students find temporary housing.
Two of the expelled students were
white females, one of them from
California. Kimbro, who lived in an
off-campus apartment, housed both
of them for about four nights as they
prepared for the journey home.
AS THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of the
incident approached, Oklahoma
Christian University officials reached
out to the 18 former students and
apologized for disrupting and
altering their lives forever.
F
■Vy OPENING TEXT is adapted
from a story by Keaton Ross for
w . . ' The Talon, Oklahoma Christian
rig University's student newspaper.
See related videos at christianchronicle.org.
THE'GATHERING'ANDTHE'SIT-IN'
What happened wasn’t a demonstra-
tion, said Ron Wright, one of the 18 stu-
dents arrested and expelled from what
was then Oklahoma Christian College.
It was, rather, an attempt by the
students to discuss an
event that had hap-
pened days earlier
— an event equally
mischaracterized by the
administration, he said.
Wright, a longtime
college president,
minister and elder of
the Gray Road Church
I
THE FUNERAL AND THE REMEMBRANCE
In the past five decades, Oklahoma
Christian students have heard only
vague details about the incident, sev-
eral alumni told the Chronicle.
That includes Jones, the son of a
longtime minister for the predomi-
nantly black Eastside Church of Christ
in Oklahoma City. A graduate of
Oklahoma Christian, he began work-
ing for the school about seven years
ago. His goal: To make the campus
more inclusive and sensitive to the
needs of its minority students.
He heard through a friend that
THEAPOLOGYANDTHEVOICE
Despite the negative encounter on a
Christian college campus, Wilson said
his faith never wavered. He still wor-
ships with the Northside Church of
Christ, a 90-member congregation in
11
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W
Racial reconciliation
and the church j
k\ 1969 — 2019 J
ir *
A J
Wright
of Christ in Cincinnati, and his fellow
former students told their stories dur-
ing a panel discussion with Oklahoma
Christian’s current students a few
hours before the apology.
In early March, 1969, they explained, a
group of students gathered at a home off
campus to celebrate a friend’s new baby.
They had signed out of their dormitories
followed the group into the building,
which also housed the business office.
Inside, the college’s then-president,
James 0. Baird, met the students with
an ultimatum: Sit-ins are against the
college’s rules. Leave in 10 minutes
or be arrested.
Some of the students dispersed.
Others, including Wright, stayed.
As staffers prepared to call police,
Wright pleaded with Baird, “This is
your opportunity to show the world
how Christians act by talking to us
and by forgiving the students who
were dismissed yesterday.”
Soon, Oklahoma City police cars
arrived. Some of the students were
handcuffed, including Billy Brooks, a
standout on the college’s basketball
team. Others rode, uncuffed, in the
front seats with police. Some of the
officers expressed bewilderment as
to why they’d been called, the former
students said.
At the jail, men and women were
separated, said Patricia McCauley
I—Kimbro, the only
* female of the 18 to
return for the com-
memoration. She
remembered sharing
a cell with two Native
American women, but
she could hear some
v. . of her male classmates
Kimbro ,x
not far away, crying.
Fifteen of the students pleaded
guilty to trespassing, The Oklahoman
newspaper reported. One was dis-
missed on a technicality — a typo on
the police intake form. Two posted
and forfeited the $20 bail charge.
For years, rumors circulated that
Fletcher, the music professor, had
quietly arranged for the bail money.
Smith
has reached out to the university.
Wright — who had stayed in touch
with the university and had even spo-
ken during its Black Heritage Week in
2002 — had expressed disbelief about
Jones taking the job.
“At the time I thought, ‘How dare
he,”’Jones said.
“Now I look back
and see that, in his
own way, he was
attempting to prepare
me for my work.”
In June 2017, the
campus mourned
the loss of Harold
Fletcher, who died
at 93. At his funeral,
stories about the
Benson Hall incident
resurfaced.
The stories
inspired the univer-
sity’s current presi-
dent, deSteiguer, and Jones to look for
ways to right an old wrong as its 50th
anniversary approached.
Risa Forrester, the university’s chief
communications officer, and staff
members attempted to contact each
of the 18 former students. Four had
died. Six did not respond. One, James
Burris, didn’t come for the remem-
brance but visited campus and spoke
about the incident on video.
The remaining seven agreed to
attend, including Wright.
“If nobody came but me and Billy, I
was coming,” he said. “I’m ecstatic —
delighted unbelievably — to be here.”
On the night of the apology, “it was
hard for me to come to any other
conclusion but that God was in that
place,” Jones said.
The hardest part, the students said,
was calling their parents.
“I was three to four weeks from
graduation, and all of a sudden my
school was taken away from me,”
Brooks said. “It was like my freedom
was taken away from me.”
Seven of the students returned
to campus and
participated in
the remembrance
ceremony:
• Michael Baldwin
• Billy Brooks
• Robert Edison
• Earl Lewis
• Patricia Kimbro
• Donald Wilson
• Ron Wright
for the weekend, as the rules required.
Word reached the administration
that the students had been at a party,
against school rules and that some
of the attendees were white females.
The college didn’t forbid interracial
dating, the former students said, but
the parents of both boyfriend and girl-
friend had to approve.
The students learned that the
“party” was to result in expulsions
— something they viewed as a gross
overreaction. It had happened off cam-
pus while they were signed out, some
argued. The college should have no
jurisdiction. And it wasn’t a party.
Wright — who had been out of
town and didn’t attend the “gather-
ing,” as the students called it — was
asked by his classmates to talk to the
administration. Their hope was that
his strong roots in Churches of Christ
would help ease the tension, he said.
Early Thursday morning, March 6,
Wright and the concerned students
walked to Benson Hall. A few others
joined them on the way, including
Wilson. He had a check to cash, so he
PHOTO ABOVE AND YEARBOOK PHOTOS (BOTTOM) PROVIDED BY OKLAHOMA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
Seven former students returned to Oklahoma Christian for the Benson Hall remembrance. They are, from left, Earl Lewis,
Michael Baldwin, Billy Brooks, Donald Wilson, Patricia McCauley Kimbro, Robert Edison and Ron Wright.
Four of the students had died:
• Chandler Jackson
• Shannon Jones
• Carl Love
• Laquetta Lusk
I
Read the series: christianchronicle.org the past, she said.
Hartford. He regrets that the arrests
may have given his classmates who
weren’t from Churches of Christ a
negative impression of the fellowship.
“My grandmother and my parents
were members of the church,” he told
the Chronicle. They
taught him to “never
allow the things of
this world to sepa-
rate you from the
word of God.”
Kimbro, who now
■ lives in Atlanta, said
she was thankful for
the long-overdue
apology, though she
had long ago moved
| on from the ugly
incident.
“I let the past be
I • ■
I
I/' '
I
r I
“Life is too short
to hold a grudge. I refuse to walk
through life carrying a bag of rocks
on my back.”
As the service concluded, the seven
former students gave a standing ova-
tion of their own to Elise Miller, a
sophomore at Oklahoma Christian.
Miller, from Dallas, is a journalism
maJor an(i a Chronicle
I | intern.
“But more than that,”
she told the audience,
“I am the manifestation
of a dream, a prayer,
and a movement. I am
a product of a group of
Miller students, deciding 50
years ago today that
they would do something far greater
than themselves.
“Fifty years ago today, I wonder
where I would have stood. In a jail
cell? In solidarity with my brothers
and sisters? Or maybe in my dorm
room too afraid to come outside.
“Regardless, 50 years later I have a
voice, and I intend to use it for good.”
■ "Wi
I
After 50 years, an apology
CONTINUED
That turned into a 22-year career.
Only in social settings — when
party games and ice-breakers
included questions like “Have you
ever been arrested?” — would he
grudgingly acknowledge what hap-
pened, speaking only in snippets: “It
was the 60s. It was a demonstration.”
The apology “helped me to sort of
clear that blockage that I had in my
mind,” Wilson said. He hadn’t seen
his classmates in 50 years, and learn-
ing how much the incident hurt them
let him know that he wasn’t alone.
“It was basically like a cleansing,”
Wilson said. Now “I’m able to speak
about it I’m able to not be ashamed of
what happened.”
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Tryggestad, Erik. The Christian Chronicle (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 76, No. 3, Ed. 1 Monday, April 1, 2019, newspaper, April 1, 2019; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1509400/m1/18/: accessed May 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Christian University Library.