Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher – Podcast
The history of the Sooner State forever changed from the January 1946 day Ada Fisher walked onto the Norman campus of the University of Oklahoma and applied for admission as not only the first African American Law School student there, but the first post-secondary school black student anywhere in the state besides all-black Langston University. Ada Fisher was that rare person whose answered call to history elevated her from ordinary to extraordinary, and because of whom all of Oklahoma has benefitted.
Join John and KTOK/iHeartRadio star Gwin Faulconer-Lippert for her inspiring story, whose message of humility, grace, boldness, and courage reaches across the generations and into another century.
It’s the 51st episode of our weekly OKLAHOMA GOLD! radio program and podcast. Go HERE to listen to them all! Future episodes explore more great heroes, events, and movements of Oklahoma History.
Tulsa attorney Amos T. Hall, NAACP Chief Counsel and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and Oklahoma Civil Rights pioneer Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher brainstorm in court during their years-long legal quest to gain the brilliant African American woman admittance to the OU School of Law in Norman. Courtesy Oklahoma Publishing Co. and Oklahoma Historical Society.
Legendary Chickasha, Oklahoma native and OU trailblazer Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher.
“The Tulsa Race Riot is the reason my mother grew up in Chickasha and not Tulsa,” Ada Fisher’s son, historian Bruce Fisher, told OKLAHOMANS 2 author John J. Dwyer. Prior to Ada’s birth, her family’s home was one of the hundreds burned down in the 1921 Tulsa Race War debacle. Her father, a Church of God in Christ pastor, moved his family to Chickasha three years before Ada’s birth.
Many thanks to Atwoods Ranch and Home, a farm and ranch supply company based in Enid, Oklahoma, for their support of the Red River Institute of History and OKLAHOMA GOLD! Please support them as you are able! Wherever you are, you can order online from thousands of quality products on their terrific website HERE. Atwoods also has 66 stores in 5 states: Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. In addition to farm and ranch supplies, Atwoods stores sell clothing, lawn and garden items, tools, hardware, automotive supplies, sporting goods, pet supplies, firearms, and seasonal items.
