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March the 9th was the day we went on duty. We had been campaigning for that privilege, but nobody joined. I kept watching the newspapers and I thought to campaign for certain civil rights and then not use them.
To me, it's very futile and somebody ought to join up after they campaigned. Born in Muskegee, Oklahoma, Olivia was just seven years old when her house was ransacked and burned by members of the KKK during the Tulsa race riots of 1921, while her and her three siblings hid under a table. There were times when I didn't know about prejudice because the only people that I had seen who were not African-American were people who wanted to sell things to my father and they brought presents for the children and listened to my sister play Bach and all kinds of things to show how interested they were. So I was totally surprised when the disaster happened. It wasn't a riot. We were really the victims, but it took 80 years before we got an apology from the mayor of Tulsa and they admitted that we were the victims.
Of course, we got no monetary reimbursement, but at least they apologized after 80 years. After the riots, her family moved to Columbus, Ohio, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in 1937 from Ohio State University. While at OSU, she joined the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, where she advocated for African-American women to be admitted to the U.S. Navy. You see, there were no people of our race in the Navy, not no girls. We had been campaigning for that privilege, but nobody joined.
I kept watching the newspapers and I thought, to campaign for certain civil rights and then not use them to me is very futile and somebody ought to join up after they campaign. So I thought, well, if I go and I survive, maybe someone else will come. Although I had applied for the Navy and they kept writing back saying, there is a technicality.
They didn't tell me what the technicality was. So I said, well, let me try the Coast Guard. And the Coast Guard recruiter was just so welcoming. She wanted to be the first one to enroll African-American. Ms. Hooker enlisted with the U.S. Coast Guard in February 1945. On March 9th, she went to basic training in Brooklyn, New York. When they told us to go to basic training, I took a trunk with all my luxuries in it. I didn't know the seven girls, other girls that went when I went all had duffel bags.
Everything was new to me. They get you up at five o'clock in the morning and you do exercises for an hour before you went to breakfast. And then, of course, you had to polish your floor, even though it didn't need polishing.
They thought of chores for you. We went to Manhattan Beach Training Station and we stayed there six and nine, 15 weeks, I think. And then when I graduated from Yeoman School, I was sent to Boston. The head of the Yeoman School, Lieutenant Isley, had written to all of the Coast Guard stations.
There were 11 districts. And the only one who answered, yes, they would take an African-American was Admiral Derby in Boston. While in Boston, Olivia earned the rank of Yeoman Second Class in the Coast Guard Women's Reserve, where she served until her unit was disbanded in 1946. By 1947, after receiving her master's, Hooker moved upstate to work in the mental health department of a women's correctional facility.
Many women in this facility were considered to have severe learning disabilities by staff. Hooker felt they were more likely to give credit and re-evaluated them and helped the women to pursue better education and jobs, a passion she inherited from her mother. My mother was a real suffragist. I mean, she was a campaigner for the women's vote. And so I guess I inherited some of that. And I want to see equal pay for equal positions.
And naturally, I'm trying to vote for people who believe that equal pay for equal positions should be the right of every person. By 1961, Olivia Hooker became Dr. Olivia Hooker when she earned her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Rochester. In 1963, she joined Fordham University as a senior clinical lecturer.
Eventually, she served as an associate professor until 1985, but it was her experience in the U.S. Coast Guard where Dr. Hooker realized her full potential. I didn't know many people that were not of my hue. And it was good for me to mix with other people and find out, you know, how they thought and what they were like. It taught me a lot about order and priorities. But I would like to see more of us realizing that we were not using, you know, that our country needs us. And I'd like to see more girls consider spending some time in the military if they don't have a job at all and they have ambition and they don't know what heights they might reach. It's really nice to have people with different points of view and different kinds of upbringing.
And the world would really prosper from more of that. After retiring at the age of 87, she joined the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary at the age of 95. She received a presidential citation in 2011 and was inducted into the New York State Senate Veterans Hall of Fame.
On November 21, 2018, she died of natural causes in her home in White Plains, New York, at the age of 103. Although she was a practicing Methodist, Dr. Olivia Hooker found inspiration in the story of St. Francis. St. Francis was a terrible boy.
I mean, he did everything wrong to his family. And so if St. Francis could become St. Francis after all the things he did as a boy, I have faith that other people can change and can see the right path and not take the path that's traveled. My favorite hymn, one of them, is, Have Thine Own Way, Lord, Have Thine Own Way. Thou art the potter, I am the clay.
Mow me and make me after their will, while I am waiting, waiting, peaceful and still. And I was just fond of that, thinking of the creator being the potter and I being the clay. To me, that was important. Dr. Olivia Hooker's story, here on Our American Story. The Unshakeables podcast is kicking off season two with an episode you won't want to miss. Join host Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business, as he welcomes a very special guest, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon. Hear about the challenges facing small businesses and some of the uh-oh moments Jamie has overcome.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. Copyright 2025.
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