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Fri July 4, 2008

42 years ago today, a march toward equal opportunities

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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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By Michael Kimball
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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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 bla