TULSA, Okla. — Feb. 8 is the birthday of one of Oklahoma's most notable civil rights activists.
Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher was born in Chickasha on this day in 1924. She's known for challenging Oklahoma's segregation laws.
Graduating valedictorian of Lincoln High School in 1941, she went on to become the first Black student at the University of Oklahoma's law school.
Ada earned her undergraduate degree at Langston University, but at the time, the school didn't offer law classes, and Black students were prohibited from attending white universities.
"Instead, Oklahoma provided funding whereby they could go outside the state of Oklahoma and attend law schools and graduate schools that accepted blacks," according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) urged Fisher to seek admission to OU's law school to challenge segregation laws and achieve her lifelong ambition of becoming a lawyer.
After reviewing her application, OU President Dr. George Lynn Cross said there was no academic reason to reject her, but Oklahoma statutes prohibited white students and Black students from going to class together.
It was also a misdemeanor to instruct or attend classes comprised of mixed races. Cross would've been fined up to $50 a day and all the white students in class with Fisher would've been fined up to $20 a day.
Fisher took the case to court. After lower courts continued to say segregation didn't violate the Constitution, the case made it to the Supreme Court.
"On January 12, 1948, the nation's highest tribunal ruled in Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma that Oklahoma must provide Fisher with the same opportunities for securing a legal education as it provided to other citizens of Oklahoma," the OHS said.
Instead of integrating Fisher into OU's law school, Oklahoma's legislature decided to create a separate law school just for her called the Langston University School of Law.
It was thrown together in five days and was set up in the State Capitol's Senate rooms.
"Fisher refused to attend Langston University School of Law, and on March 15, 1948, her lawyers filed a motion in the Cleveland County District Court contending that Langston's law school did not afford the advantages of a legal education to blacks substantially equal to the education whites received at OU's law school," the OHS said.
The Cleveland County court again turned down Fisher's case, and her lawyers announced their intention to appeal to the Supreme Court.
"However, Oklahoma Attorney General Mac Q. Williamson declined to return to Washington, D.C., and face the same nine Supreme Court justices in order to argue that Langston's law school was equal to OU's law school," the OHS said.
Fisher was then finally admitted to OU's law school three years after her application.
Langston University's law school closed 12 days later.
Fisher's journey after being admitted to the school was anything but easy, but she made it easier for Black students to follow in her footsteps.
In 1992, Oklahoma Governor David Walters appointed Fisher to the Board of Regents of OU to honor her work.
Fisher passed away in 1995. In her honor, OU dedicated the Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Garden on the Norman campus.
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