Dr. Olivia Hooker, 2004-2007
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Turner, Reginald
setName: label: See more items in
content: Guide to 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Oral History Collection
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAAHC.A2014.240, Series 2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Dr. Olivia Hooker was born on February 12, 1915 in Muskogee, Oklahoma in the Greenwood District of Tulsa. During the race massacre, the family's clothing store was destroyed. She and her four siblings hid under their dining room table while their possessions were demolished. The family left Tulsa and moved to Columbus, Ohio. While at Ohio State University, Hooker tried to join the Navy multiple times but was denied. She was eventually recruited by the Coast Guard becoming the first African American woman to serve actively in the Coast Guard. Hooker transitioned to a career in education, earning a teaching and master's degree in psychological services. She worked with prisoners with disabilities and children with Down syndrome. She taught at Fordham University for over twenty years. Hooker served as a plaintiff, along with her siblings Naomi Hooker Chamberlain and Samuel L. Hooker, in the court case, Alexander, et al., v. Oklahoma, et al. in 2003. She died in White Plains, New York in 2018.