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1923–2011 Clara Luper received her bachelor's degree from Langston University in 1944 and her master's degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1951, becoming the first Black graduate student in the OU History program. Luper went on to become the adviser for the Oklahoma City NAACP Youth Council. The Youth Council staged a "sit-in" at Oklahoma City's Katz drugstore in 1958, launching a national sit-in movement to demonstrate against segregation. She continued her non-violent activism, participating in marches, demonstrations and was jailed numerous times for her Civil Rights work. Former G...

Donna Shirley made space history in the 1990s as the first woman to manage a NASA program. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, the veteran aerospace engineer led both the Mars Exploration Program and the team that built Sojourner, the first rover to land on the Red Planet. That climaxed the Mars Pathfinder mission on July 4, 1997. Here are 11 facts about Shirley’s life and career. 1. Donna Shirley was eager to escape her small-town Oklahoma roots. Shirley was born in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, on July 27, 1941, to a doctor and a former horseback riding instructor, b...