City Councilor G.T. Bynum and Bob Burke of the Oklahoma Heritage Association are writing a book about Bynum's grandfather, former Mayor Robert LaFortune.
City Councilor G.T. Bynum can talk.
Bynum, 35, is known one of the council’s most eloquent speakers.
Now he’s putting his thoughts down on paper in the form of a book about his grandfather, former mayor Robert LaFortune.
“My family has been wanting to see it done for a long time,” Bynum said. “Because my grandfather has lived through a period where he worked with and knew so many of the important and impactful people that have shaped Tulsa in the later half of the 20th century.”
The family’s wishes are coming true thanks to the Oklahoma Heritage Association, which expressed interest in the project and offered the assistance of prolific biographer Bob Burke.
“He is doing most of the writing,” Bynum said.
The city councilor spent more than a year talking with colleagues and associates of his 86-year-old grandfather. The best insight, of course, came from Robert LaFortune himself, who after initially dismissing the idea agreed to sit down with his grandson.
“He didn’t want some vanity piece on himself,” Bynum said. “But once we explained that it is really about covering how the city has evolved over the course of his lifetime, he got more interested.”
After talking to his grandfather for 30 hours over several visits, Bynum came away with a greater knowledge and appreciation for the private life of the man who served as streets commissioner from 1964 to 1970 and mayor from 1970 to 1978.
“You cover everything from when he was a little kid living across the street from the Philbrook Museum when Wade Phillips still lived there and he would sneak back through the bars of his fence and play in his backyard when he was still a little kid, and today when he has been out of public office for 30 years and is still very active,” Bynum said.
The city councilor said one of the most compelling stories his grandfather shared had to do with his vote as street commissioner on an ordinance to desegregate the city’s public facilities.
The vote took place at the old City Hall building on Fourth Street and Cincinnati Avenue.
“He goes in there for the vote and there are Ku Klux Klan members driving around the block waving Confederate flags, Catholic priests and nuns marching in support of it,” Bynum said. “He was one of only two Republicans on the commission and the other one voted against it.”
The book is scheduled to be published early next year. When it is completed, it will surely find a prominent spot on the councilor’s cluttered bookshelf at home.
Bynum estimates he's read more than 1,000 biographies in his young life.
Now he’s writing one.
“I’ve felt for a while that we don’t have enough good biographies on Tulsans,” Bynum said. “Whether it is Bill Skelly or John Williams or Walt Helmerich, we need more of those stories told and recorded.
“This book is a step in recording that important part of our community’s history.”
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