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| Living Legacy Award Recipients Photo Credit: Walter C. Black, Sr. |
Dr. Olivia J. Hooker, a survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and first African-American woman to enlist in the U.S. Coast Guard, had died at age 103. She was born on February 12, 1915, in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Dr. Hooker was only six years old when she and her three siblings hid under the table while the Ku Klux Klan ransacked their home.
She applied to the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service for the U.S. Navy but was rejected due to her ethnicity. She fought the rejection due to a technicality and she was accepted. She received her Masters in Psychology. Dr. Hooker was one of the founders of the American Psychological Association. I had the pleasure of being one of the women along with Dr. Olivia Hooker in 2013 to be a recipient of the Living Legacy Award presented by Association for the Study of American American Life and History (ASALH).
I was seated at the same table with a living legend and I wish I had the time just to sit and talk with her about her experience. With over 180 nominations, nineteen women were chosen to receive the Living Legacy Award at the 87th Annual Black History Month Luncheon, February 23, 2013, at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington D.C.
