Kate Barnard - Oklahoma's Good Angel (Part 1) - Podcast

Oklahoma radio star Gwin Faulconer-Lippert, Southern Nazarene University author and historian John J. Dwyer, and the only person so far who is too big to fit into just one OKLAHOMA GOLD episode—4-foot, 11-inch, 90-pound Irish-American hurricane Kate Barnard, “Oklahoma’s Good Angel.” Greatest defender of the forgotten and marginalized in Oklahoma history. She stood up for abused children, prisoners, laborers, the poor, and the Indians when NONE of that was popular to do.

We hope you enjoy Part 1 of an unforgettable saga of Oklahoma courage and grit, about John’s personal favorite Oklahoma hero. The eighth episode of the weekly OKLAHOMA GOLD! radio program and podcast. To hear them all, visit our special Oklahoma Gold page HERE!

Future episodes explore more great heroes, events, and movements of Oklahoma History.

This massive downtown OKC crowd demonstrates the power of Kate Barnard’s oratory during the 1911 OKC Streetcar Strike. She is speaking from the building balcony above the street.

“Our Kate.” She won more votes for Commissioner of Charities and Corrections in Oklahoma's first statewide election than the winning candidate for governor did—before women could vote!

Sandra Van Zandt’s inspiring bronze statue of Kate Barnard, “Oklahoma’s Good Angel,” that sits just inside the east entrance to the Oklahoma State Capitol. She wrote this prayer in her last will and testament: “(That) the youth of the world may emulate me in dedicating their own lives to securing justice for the poor of their generation as I did for mine.”