Born in February, 1915 in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Olivia Hooker was just six years old when the Tulsa riots broke out. As she and her three siblings huddled under the family dining room table, hidden by a tablecloth, torch-carrying Ku Klux Klan members destroyed her family’s home. While her family was uninjured, the riot left 35 of Tulsa’s city blocks destroyed, more than 10,000 homeless, an estimated 300 dead, and over 800 other men, women, and children needing medical attention.
After the riots, Olivia’s family moved to Columbus, Ohio and in 1937 she earned a bachelor’s degree and joined the Delta Sigma Theta sorority at Ohio State University, where she advocated for women to join the military.
When World War II broke out, Olivia was working as a schoolteacher. After her years of advocating for service, however, she traded her classroom for basic training.
Initially rejected from the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) of the U.S. Navy because she was African-American, she instead turned to the Coast Guard and became the first African-American woman to join the branch. She served as a member of the Semper Paratus program (SPAR) where she prepared discharge papers for guardsmen returning from the war and rejoining civilian life. She served on active duty as a yeoman from July 1945 to June 1946 when her unit was disbanded after the war.
Following the war, Olivia continued pursuing a life in service to others and received a master’s degree in Psychological Services from the Teacher’s College of Columbia University. She would go on to earn her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and become one of the founders of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Division 33, Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
A professor at Fordham University, she also served as an early director of the Kennedy Child Study Center in New York City where she gave evaluations and provided therapy for children with learning disabilities and developmental delays. She would reflect later that she loved every minute of her profession as a professor and psychologist, retiring at the age of 87.
After a full life dedicated to service, Olivia passed away at her home on November 21st, 2018, at the age of 103 in White Plains, New York. She was laid to rest with full military honors.
We honor her service.
Source:
https://news.va.gov/54771/coast-guard-veteran-olivia-hooker/
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