Olivia J. Hooker: A Doctor, a Survivor and an Educator

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Dr. Olivia J. Hooker

NY Senate - Guess of Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins

Dr. Olivia J. Hooker was a clinical psychologist, a professor of psychology, one of the first African-American women to serve in the U.S. Coast Guard and a survivor of the Tulsa race massacre in 1921.

Dr. Oliva Hooker was a remarkable woman, but a regular woman in many ways.  She was a product of a strong family, of a solid education and she had a fighting spirit that never let her succumb to limitations being places on her life.

She was born in Muskogee, OK on February 12, 1915.  Her family moved to Tulsa when she was still very young—into the Greenwood area of Tulsa.  Greenwood was, of course, the all-Black area of Tulsa known for its thriving businesses, great schools and wonderful community during the earlier part of the 1900s. It was, of course, destroyed by all-white rioters who came into Greenwood and burned down its buildings, stole property from its homes, and killed hundreds of people…leaving some 10,000 people homeless.  Olivia was only 6 years old when this atrocity took place.

She remembered being at home with her mother when the rioters came rampaging through her community.  Her mother told Olivia, and her other children, to get under the big oak table they had.  She found the longest tablecloth she could find and told the kids to be quiet so that the white men wouldn’t know they were there.

Olivia heard objects crashing up against the house and she thought it must have been hail that was coming down—she didn’t understand.  Her mother told her, “No.”  

You see…at this time Olivia was six years old and she didn’t know anything about racism and prejudice, her older brothers and sister knew—but she didn’t know yet.  She thought what she was taught in school—about the Constitution and the idea of equal justice for all—applied to everybody.  So, when she heard the objects crashing up against her house, she thought it was hail, and didn’t dream that authorities and other members of other communities would be attacking her home.

So, her mother told her to come over to the window and her mother said “You see that thing up there?  That's a machine gun. And the man beside it has a flag on top of it.  That means your country is shooting at you.”

Her mother told her to go back under the oak table, before the rioters came into their home with torches.  They went into the kitchen, where Olivia’s mother had been cooking, took all of her pots off of the stove and threw them into the backyard—then they ransacked their home.  They broke up the piano that Olivia’s sister practiced on and stole her mother’s brand new luggage.  They poured oil onto her grandmother’s bed and set it on fire.  They broke her mother’s Caruso records, but left her “Rugged Cross” record—then stole their silverware. 

The men pillaged and took valuables from home-after-home before they returned to burn down the area.  You see, this was a multi-day affair and it was coordinated, with members of the community, the local government and other authorities participating.

Olivia, as a witness to these events, remembered it this way:

“They didn’t burn all those 10,000 people out of their homes (right away)…”, she said.

“They didn’t call themselves Ku Klux all the time (they had different names for themselves)…, but they came by the thousands and decided first they would pillage. They went through everybody’s house to take what was valuable.” 

“They just hauled the belongings of the Black population of Tulsa away.”

“The next morning they came around and the Oklahoma militia, which is like the state police, came and said, ‘We’re going to disarm everybody.’  So they walked around and they took all the males, at gunpoint they took them, and said, ‘We’re disarming everyone.’  But, you see, we lived on the left side of town…we thought they were doing that on the right side of town, but they didn’t.  They took all the arms away from anyone that looked like he was an African-American, but they didn’t disarm the other side of town and, therefore, if they didn’t have guns they gave them the ones that belonged to the people in Tulsa in Greenwood and supplied them and said, well now, ‘There’s nothing out there but women and children, we’ve taken every male.’  They even took my eight-year-old brother.”

“Then the crowds came and really did a lot of devastation.”  

Houses, churches, a hospital, businesses…were all blown up, burned to the ground or utterly destroyed…even the school, where six-year-old Olivia went, was blown up with dynamite.

This event was devastating, as you might imagine, but Olivia’s father was a fighter and a store owner.  He went back into the area, where his store was located, to look for a special safe that he had.  The store he owned, of course was destroyed, but he had a safe in his store and, as he expected, the rioters didn’t take the safe because it was too heavy to carry away and the fire didn’t completely destroy it.

Inside the safe he kept war bonds that he had purchased and bags of money.  You see, many people in the community trusted Mr. Hooker because he was a valued-store owner and a respectable man.  They gave him bags of money, with their names written on it, and would say, “Mr. Hooker, keep this until I need it.” So, the bonds were his, but the bags (with peoples’ names on them) belonged to others in the community.  Olivia’s father went around trying to find everyone he could, whose bags he had, and returned the money to its rightful owners, in that time of crisis. 

He then took the war bonds he had and went, along with another man in the community, to various cities like Washington, DC, Lynchburg, Petersburg, etc.  They went specifically to Black churches and told them the stories of what happened.  The Black churches they talked to organize supplies into barrels…shoes, clothing and other needed items.  They sent supplies to Greenwood and the local high school, which wasn’t completely destroyed (it had one end still standing), was used as a distribution site where people could come and get the necessary items. 

Olivia would experience additional challenges in life, but Olivia Hooker was a remarkable woman.  She graduated from Ohio State University in 1937 and later got a master’s degree in psychology from Columbia University.  She also went on to get a PhD in psychology from the University of Rochester.  She was, as we have mentioned, or one of the first African-American women to actively serve in the United States Coast Guard. During the rest of her life she experience discrimination and prejudice, as you might expect, but she lived by an ideal that helped her overcome that hate.  

"If you dwell on your misery, you're not helping yourself or anybody else,”

”So, if you think, ‘What can I do to keep this from happening again?' that helps you to go forward, rather than spending your life pitying yourself.”

References:

Chenoweth, Robin.  How her Buckeye years shaped the life of a hero.  Ohio State University College of Education and Humanity.  January 11, 2019.  https://ehe.osu.edu/news/listing/how-her-buckeye-years-shaped-life-hero/

Foreign Fauna. Google Doodle Veterans Day 2018 - Olivia J. Hooker (Coast Guard).  Accessed April 16, 2019.  https://vimeo.com/300222346

Genzlinger, Neil.  “Olivia Hooker, 103, Dies; Witness to an Ugly Moment in History.”  New York Times. November 23, 2018.  Accessed May 2019.  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/obituaries/olivia-hooker-dead.html

Honings, Diana (Petty Officer 2nd Class).  Honoring living history.  Coast Guard Compass (official blog of the U.S. Coast Guard).  June 11, 2015. Accessed April 16, 2019. https://coastguard.dodlive.mil/2015/06/honoring-living-history/

NYSenate. NYS Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins Welcomes Honored Guest: Dr. Olivia Hooker- Albany 03-24-10. Accessed April 17, 2019.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRACTc5AMBE

U.S. Coast Guard.  Dr. Oliva Hooker: A SPAR’s Story.  October 30, 2013.  Accessed April 16, 2019.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1CsWxQ7H18