Thank you Nicci Eisenhauer for honoring the memory of Coast Guard veteran Olivia Hooker who survived the 1921 Tulsa race riot and lived to the ripe old age of 103 before she died on Wednesday at home in White Plains, New York.
Rest in Peace Olivia Hooker!

Image: 1951 Ms Hooker was almost 30 when she joined the US Coast Guard, the first African-American woman to do so.

"When Olivia Hooker was six years old, she was forced to hide under a table as a white mob destroyed the neighbourhood around her.

Later, she would recount how she struggled to stay silent as the torch-carrying men took an axe to the family piano. Outside, as many as 1,000 homes and businesses - including her father's clothes store - were being reduced to rubble.

The 1921 Tulsa race riot, as it would become known, would also leave as many as 300 black people dead.

But the horrifying incident in Oklahoma would be far from the only distinguishing moment of Ms Hooker's remarkable life.

In her 103 years, she would become the first African-American woman to join the US Coast Guard, go on to gain a PhD and eventually play a key role in getting some justice for the victims of the race riots, more than 70 years after the fact.

She would be praised as a "tireless voice for justice and equality" by America's first black president, and called "a national treasure" by the head of the US Coast Guard.

'The terrible catastrophe'
Ms Hooker, who died on Wednesday at home in White Plains, New York, thousands of miles and almost 100 years away from the riots in Tulsa, was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in February 1915.

By the time she was six, the family had moved to Tulsa, where her father had "a very nice store" which "didn't carry shoddy things".

They lived in Greenwood, an affluent African-American area known as "Black Wall Street".

But on 31 May, 1921, it would become the scene of America's worst race riot - sparked by rumours a black man had assaulted a white woman in a lift.

The first Ms Hooker knew of it was when she saw men carrying burning torches entering their back garden. It was then, she told US radio network NPR, her mother hid Ms Hooker and her three siblings under a table."
Thank you my friend Lt Col Charlie Brown for mentioning me.

FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SSgt Brian Brakke 1stSgt Eugene Harless CPT Scott Sharon SSG William Jones

The link won’t open? Nicci Eisenhauer

Me either Nicci Eisenhauer . Thanks for sharing!
LTC Stephen F. SPC Douglas Bolton Sgt John H. TSgt Joe C. SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL TSgt David L. SMSgt David A Asbury MSgt David Hoffman SGT (Join to see) LTC David Brown CPL Dave Hoover CMSgt (Join to see) SGT Mark Halmrast SPC Mark Huddleston Maj Marty Hogan CPT Jack Durish CW5 Jack Cardwell Sgt Randy Wilber SCPO Morris Ramsey