Last updated: October 16, 2023
Person
Olivia Hooker
Office of War Information, US Government, public domain. Courtesy New York Public Library.
Quick Facts
Significance:
first Black woman in Coast Guard active duty; Tulsa race massacre survivor; psychologist and professor
Place of Birth:
Muskogee, OK
Date of Birth:
Feb 12, 1915
Place of Death:
White Plains, NY
Date of Death:
Nov 21, 2018
Place of Burial:
White Plains, NY
Cemetery Name:
White Plains Rural Cemetery
Dr. Olivia J. Hooker, a survivor of the Tulsa race massacre, blazed a trail as the first Black woman on active duty in the US Coast Guard.
Early Life & Tulsa Race Massacre
Olivia Hooker was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma in 1915. When she was a child, she and her family moved fifty miles away to Tulsa. The city was rigidly segregated, but many Black residents managed to carve out prosperous lives for themselves despite discrimination. Hooker’s father owned a clothing store in the affluent Greenwood District, sometimes known as America’s “Black Wall Street.”[1]
In 1921, when Hooker was six years old, white supremacist rhetoric boiled over into vicious violence. Enraged by false rumors that a local Black man had assaulted a white woman, white mobs invaded the Greenwood neighborhood. Arsonists torched homes, businesses, churches, and schools. Members of the mob shot indiscriminately at residents. At least dozens – likely hundreds – of Black Tulsans died. Nearly 10,000 were left homeless.
Hooker and her family were at home when intruders carrying torches entered their backyard. In an interview with NPR, she remembered her mother hiding her and her siblings under the dining room table and warning them to stay silent. “It was a horrifying thing for a little girl who’s only six years old,” she said, “trying to remember to keep quiet, so they wouldn’t know we were there.”[3] The men destroyed the family record player and butchered the piano with an ax. The mob also burned her father’s store to the ground. They reduced most of the businesses and homes in the neighborhood to rubble.
Like tens of thousands of other Black Tulsans, the Hooker family left the city soon after the massacre. They moved to Topeka, Kansas and then to Ohio. Hooker earned a BA at Ohio State University and began working as a teacher. She told NPR that her parents urged her and her siblings to avoid “agonizing over the past” and instead “look forward and think how we could make things better.” [4]
SPARS Service
During World War II, the US military began opening its ranks to women for the first time. However, most branches refused to accept Black women. It took dedicated campaigns from Black activists to end this discrimination. When the Navy’s WAVES program finally opened to Black enlistees in 1944, Hooker applied several times. But the WAVES turned her down due to a “technicality” that they did not explain. Instead, Hooker decided to try the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve, better known as the SPARS. In a 2013 interview, she recalled that the SPARS recruiter was “just so welcoming, she wanted to be the first one to enroll an African American.”[5]
On March 9, 1945, Hooker became the first Black SPAR on active duty. Along with four other Black women, she completed boot camp at the Coast Guard’s training center in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn. She went on to further training as a yeoman, or administrative specialist. After finishing yeoman school, however, Hooker faced additional obstacles. The head of the school wrote to every Coast Guard station commander—there were 11—to find an assignment for her. Only one, in Boston, agreed to take a Black yeoman.[6]
At her post in Boston, Hooker worked in the separation center, processing paperwork for those who were discharging from the service. While she was there, the war ended. The SPARS—approved for the “duration [of the war] plus six months”—prepared to disband. “I think I was the last one out because I had to type my own discharge,” Hooker recalled. She left the SPARS having been promoted to yeoman 2nd class.
Asked about her SPARS service in 2013, Hooker reflected:
“I would like to see more of us realize that our country needs us, and I’d like to see more girls consider spending some time in the military, if they don’t have a job at all and they have ambition, and they don’t know what heights they might reach. It’s really nice to have people with different points of view and different kinds of upbringing. The world would really prosper from more of that.”[8]
Psychologist
After leaving the SPARS, Hooker used her GI Bill benefits to go back to school. She earned an MA from Teachers College at Columbia University and a PhD in psychology from the University of Rochester. She specialized in working with children with developmental disabilities.
Hooker taught at Fordham University in New York City from 1963 until 1985. She then worked at the Fred S. Keller School, a preschool and early intervention program. She retired in 2002, at the age of 87. Hooker co-founded a division of the American Psychological Association (APA) dedicated to intellectual and developmental disabilities. The APA honored her with a Presidential Citation in 2011.
Later Life & Honors
Throughout her life, Hooker shared her memories of the Tulsa race massacre and advocated for justice for its victims. In the immediate aftermath, white city officials buried evidence of the massacre. No one was charged, and most victims received no compensation from their insurance companies. Hooker co-founded the Tulsa Race Massacre Commission in 1997 to unearth the buried evidence of the massacre. She also pressed for reparations for Black Tulsans. She joined a lawsuit against the state and testified before Congress in 2005 and 2007. In the 2020s, victims and their descendants continue to seek acknowledgement and financial compensation for the massacre.
In 2015, the Coast Guard recognized Hooker by renaming a training facility and a dining hall in her honor. Hooker died in 2018 at the age of 103.
Notes
[1] The Greenwood Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 26, 2022.
[2] Sources differ on the number of casualties. Official records from 1921 confirm only 35-40 deaths. However, activist Walter White visited Tulsa shortly after the massacre and guessed that between 150-200 Black and about 50 white residents were dead. The 2001 commission to study the massacre estimated that the death toll was between 150 and 300. See 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre - Tulsa Historical Society & Museum (tulsahistory.org).
[3] Nellie Gilles, “Meet the Last Surviving Witness to the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” National Public Radio, May 31, 2018. Meet The Last Surviving Witness To The Tulsa Race Riot Of 1921 : Code Switch : NPR
[4] Gilles, "Meet the Last Surviving Witness to the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921."
[5] Olivia Hooker interview with Ali Flockerzi, Coast Guard Compass, Oct. 29, 2013, 1:02-1:11.
[6] Olivia Hooker interview, 2:16-2:36.
[7] Olivia Hooker interview, 3:35 – 3:43.
[8] Olivia Hooker interview, 4:16 – 5:05.
Sources
Genzlinger, Neil. “Olivia Hooker, 103, Dies; Witness to an Ugly Moment in History.” New York Times, Nov. 23, 2018. Olivia Hooker, 103, Dies; Witness to an Ugly Moment in History - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Flockerzi, Ali. “Olivia Hooker: A SPAR’s Story.” Coast Guard Compass, Oct. 29, 2013. Olivia Hooker: A SPAR’s Story « Coast Guard Compass (archive.org)
Gilles, Nellie. “Meet the Last Surviving Witness to the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.” National Public Radio, May 31, 2018. Meet The Last Surviving Witness To The Tulsa Race Riot Of 1921 : Code Switch : NPR
MacKay, Jenna. “Olivia Hooker (b. 1915),” Society for the Psychology of Women, American Psychological Association. Olivia Hooker (b. 1915) (apadivisions.org)
McCarthy, Lauren. “Court Ruling Revives Reparations Claim Filed by Tulsa Massacre Survivors.” New York Times, Aug. 16, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/16/us/tulsa-race-massacre-lawsuit-appeal.html
“People & Stories Oral history Project: Dr. Olivia J. Hooker.” White Plains Public Library, September 2015. People & Stories Oral History Project: Dr. Olivia J. Hooker | White Plains Public Library (whiteplainslibrary.org)
Porter, Janis and Olivia Hooker. “Olivia J. Hooker, Pioneer and First Black Woman in the Coast Guard.” StoryCorps.org, Feb. 28, 2020. Olivia J. Hooker, Pioneer and First Black Woman in the Coast Guard – StoryCorps
“The memories of what happened to us then will never go away.” Rochester Women, University of Rochester, Feb. 28, 2020. ‘The memories of what happened to us then will never go away’ : News Center (rochester.edu)
Article by Ella Wagner, PhD, Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education. This article was funded by the National Council on Public History's cooperative agreement with the National Park Service.