Events planned all month to celebrate Black Heritage

Cultural events are planned all month long, as Lawton-Fort Sill celebrates Black Heritage.

African Americans and Labor is the topic for events ranging from a prayer breakfast and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday celebration, to aviation-themed activities for youth courtesy of Teamwork Makes the Dream Work.

The celebration begins at 3:30 p.m. today with a Community New Year’s Day Service at Abundant Life Christian Church, 509 NW Woodridge. The event will be led by Bishop John Dunaway.

Dunaway said a variety of entities and individuals have been involved in the process to create the events designed to bring recognition to African American history, heritage and legacies, not just for the African-American community but the community at large. That’s why so many people were involved in the process, he said.

“There is a plethora of organizations and individuals that went into the planning,” he said, citing the faith community, along with Greek fraternities and sororities, the NAACP, and Lawton Public Schools and Cameron University (both are playing huge roles, Dunaway said). He also cited Next Step’s Teamwork Makes the Dream Work, who as usual, is coordinating an educational event aimed at community youth.

Dunaway said the end result is educational opportunities for the city, not just for youth, but for all citizens.

Does he have a favorite?

“I really like all of them,” Dunway said, chuckling then adding he enjoys the educational programs — “Who doesn’t like to see young people engaged in building things?” — but also enjoys the faith-based initiatives, as well as the events held on Cameron that bring a variety of people to the community.

The month of activity ends with youth engagement: the Jan. 25 session of Simon Berry: All Things Aviation, scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the FISTA Innovation Park, located in downtown Lawton’s Central Plaza. Berry was a successful businessman in the Greenwood area of Tulsa — known as the Black Wall Street before it was destroyed by a massacre in 1921 — but continued influencing people.

According to the website thevictoryofgreenwood.com, Berry brought organized transportation to the residents of Greenwood and, later, those who lived beyond that community. He started a taxi service for Greenwood residents (Tulsa’s taxi service was limited to whites), then used proceeds from that popular service to build a mechanic garage so he could return to an earlier profession: training black mechanics. From there, Berry began investing in buses to create a bus service that became regional.

Then, he started looking to the sky. He and business partner James Lee Northington were the first of only six black families in Oklahoma who owned private airplanes. The men earned their pilot’s licenses and purchased an open-cockpit biplane in 1925, launching air charter service that served both black and white residents.