Anita Arnold opened doors for Black Americans in business. Now she’s sharing Oklahoma’s Black history

Getting to know Anita Arnold is a challenge because she’d rather not talk about herself. She wants you to know about Oklahoma’s African American heritage and people like Charlie Christian, the legendary jazz guitarist with the Benny Goodman orchestra. He is “not one of the greatest, he’s the greatest musician ever to come out of Oklahoma, African American or otherwise,” she says. A large painting representing Christian hangs just behind her desk. Arnold, 84, animated and outspoken, is executive director of the Black Liberated Arts Center just north of the state Capitol. Formed in 1969, the center’s aim is to use the vehicle of fine arts and history to expose the OKC community to African, African American and Black culture. Born on a farm in Tecumseh, she moved to a segregated Oklahoma City in the 1950s and ended up at all-Black Douglass High School — “the best in the city,” she says. After graduation she worked for a time on the assembly line at Western Electric, then a supplier to AT&T. “I hated it,” she said. “I was going to quit and go home.” But then, she said, she got a call from Nathaniel Arnold, then CEO of the Urban...