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Coast Guard pioneer, race riot survivor laid to rest

Coast Guard pioneer, race riot survivor laid to rest | iNFOnews.ca
FILE- In this May 10, 2005, file photo survivor of the 1921 Tulsa race riots, Otis Granville Clark, 102, left, acknowledges the introduction, as fellow survivors, Dr. Olivia Hooker, 90, right, and Wess Young, 88, second left, and his wife, Cathryn Young, second right, give their applause at the start of a briefing before members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other leaders on Capitol Hill in Washington. Hooker, one of the last survivors of the race riot, one of the worst race riots in U.S. history, has died at age 103. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – The first African-American woman to serve in the U.S. Coast Guard and one of the last survivors of a race riot in Oklahoma has been laid to rest with military honours.

A funeral was held Wednesday in White Plains, New York, for Olivia Hooker. She was 103 years old when she died on Nov. 21.

The Coast Guard says Hooker enlisted in the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve in 1945 and rose to the rank of yeoman second class before her discharge in 1946.

Hooker also survived one of the worst race riots in U.S. history. She was 6 years old in 1921 when the late-spring riot destroyed much of a Tulsa neighbourhood that had been known as “Black Wall Street.”

Hooker was a psychologist and a professor of psychology at Fordham University, where she retired at age 87 in 2002.

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Abbey Westbury

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