42 years ago today, a march toward equal opportunities
42 years ago today, a march toward equal opportunities
By Michael Kimball
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Published: July 4, 2008
LAWTON — Two years and two days after President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, blacks in Lawton still were denied access to a highly popular swimming park.
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Doe Doe Park timeline
1966
June 11: Police arrest 22 of about 200 protesters picketing Doe Doe Recreation Park, a private, segregated amusement park with a swimming pool in Lawton.
June 16-18: Protestors march from the Capitol in Oklahoma City to the park, riding in a caravan of cars part of the way and walking the rest. The march ends with a large protest at the park and a pledge from Lawton Mayor Wayne Gilley to open negotiations.
July 4:Weeks of almost constant picketing at the park and at city hall culminate with 55 arrests after “voices were raised in anger” for the first time and a few punches were thrown, according to witnesses at the time.
Aug. 16: The Lawton City Council adopts a measure supported by the NAACP that requires private facilities to integrate, but adds an exemption for water parks, outraging the black community.
1967
Feb. 1: In response to the protests, the U.S. Department of the Interior grants $75,000 for the construction of a public pool in Lawton open to all comers.
June 6: Built with the federal grant, Olympic-sized Mattie Beal Park Pool opens.
1968
May 3: Less than a month after a federal court ruled the park did not have to integrate, Ben F. Hutchins Jr., son of the owner, announces his family will voluntarily integrate Doe Doe Recreation Park.
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The act that outlawed segregation in schools, public places and employment had no effect on Doe Doe Recreation Park, a Lawton destination on a hot summer day. It was a private operation that had the right, legally at least, to deny entrance to anyone the owners chose.
On July 4, 1966, 42 years ago today, about 200 mostly black protestors descended on the park's gates carrying American flags, posters and singing religious and national hymns. Fifty-five were arrested for trespassing.
There was no trespassing ordinance on the city books.
‘It was ugly, and it wasn't right.'
Coree Steel, 79, was an Army wife at
Fort Sill that summer. Her husband was fighting for the freedom of others in
Vietnam.
But if she wanted to take her young son to swim in Lawton, Steel was out of luck. Much of Doe Doe Park's business came from white soldiers and their families, but blacks were not allowed.
“It was ugly and it wasn't right,” said Steel, a retired teacher.
Picketing at the park and City Hall occurred almost daily during the Summer of 1966.
Betty Owens, a Lawton resident who later filed suit against the park in an unsuccessful integration attempt, said the black community felt it had to march.
“We marched almost every day,” said Owens, 87.
Her late husband was Lawton's only black doctor in 1966 and the chairman of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People local chapter. “A lot of the restaurants wouldn't let us eat there, so we marched there too. A lot of sit-downs and sit-ins. It took them awhile to come around.”
‘We just kept on marching.'
Royce Frazier, 59, of
Oklahoma City, was one of about 100 people who marched, on foot and by car, in protest from Oklahoma City to Lawton from June 16-18 that summer.
“Rocks were thrown at us. We were spit on,” said Frazier, a retired appliance salesman. “We just kept on marching.”
He had been arrested with 21 others June 11, days before the march, while picketing the park. He said they never faced significant legal action and were under the impression they had been thrown in jail just to stop the protest.
“It seemed to me it was a very nice jail,” he said this week with a chuckle. “I just went in there and was tired. I took a nap.”
The summer's unrest climaxed with the July 4 arrests.
Embarrassed city officials later had to re-file complaints against the 55 arrestees when they discovered there was no trespassing law on the books, and instead filed complaints of creating a nuisance at a public place.
Change would come two years later.
An end to discrimination?
On May 3, 1968, less than a month after a federal court ruled Doe Doe Recreation Park could not be forced to integrate, the park's owners announced they would voluntarily integrate the park.
Bill Hutchins Jr., son of the park's now-deceased owner, told
The Oklahoman in 1993 his father just wanted to be proven right that his park was not bound by the Civil Rights Act.
“Dad was hard and strong,” Hutchins said. “He didn't like anybody telling him he had to do something. After he had shown the people he was right, he said, ‘Boys, let's integrate. It's the right thing to do.'”
It should be noted also that the park desegregated after it was placed off-limits to military personnel by a Fort Sill commanding general. Two years earlier, a Fort Sill commanders said he didn't have authority to do that.
Steel said some progress has been made.
She said the main impact of the civil rights movement hasn't been to lessen pre-existing prejudices, but rather to create opportunities for advancement that hadn't existed before.
“I'm just thankful that I do have what I have, and I try to encourage all my young people to go out and get an education,” Steel said. “Don't be satisfied with the status quo. Try to make things better.”
The park was torn down after it went out of business in 1985. A lone bridge spans a ditch near where the park once stood. The land now unused.
And though racial strife couldn't be torn apart as easily as the park's buildings, Steel said progress made since the summer of 1966 returned power to the hands of those who take advantage of the opportunities now afforded them.
“If you get educated,” she said, “you can have your own swimming pool.”
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