About Olivia Hooker
Olivia Juliette Hooker (February 12, 1915 – November 21, 2018) was an American psychologist and professor. She was a survivor of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, and the first African-American woman to enter the U.S. Coast Guard. During World War II, she became a member of the United States Coast Guard Women's Reserve, earning the rank of Yeoman Third Class during her service. She served in the Coast Guard until her unit was disbanded in mid-1946. Hooker then used her G.I. Bill to obtain her master's degree in psychological services and went on earn her PhD in clinical psychology. In 1973, she helped form the American Psychological Association's Division 33: IDD/ASD, which is dedicated to "advancing psychological research, professional education, and clinical services that increase quality of life in individuals with IDD/ASD across the life course." == Early life and education == One of five children, Hooker was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, to Samuel Hooker and Anita Hooker (née Stigger). The family was living in the Greenwood District of Tulsa on May 31, 1921, when a group of white men carrying torches entered their home and began destroying their belongings, including her sister's piano and her father's record player. She and her siblings crouched under a table, hidden by a tablecloth, until the men were gone. "It was a horrifying thing for a little girl who's only six years old," she told Radio Diaries in 2018, "trying to remember to keep quiet, so they wouldn't know we were there." The attack was part of the Tulsa race massacre of May 31 – June 1, 1921, in which members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white residents of Tulsa destroyed the Greenwood District—also known as Black Wall Street for the concentration of Black-owned businesses in the area—killing as many as 300 people and leaving more than 10,000 homeless. After the riots, her family moved to Topeka, Kansas, and then to Columbus, Ohio.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.