… destroy what little blacks had was a way keeping them down and breaking their spirit.
As many parents did before the attack, Dr. Hooker’s parents shielded her from the racism and discrimination that blacks faced daily. However, that night of June 1, 1921, Dr. Hooker’s eyes opened to the hatred White people felt toward Blacks.
“It was the middle of summer,” Hooker recalled. “And I couldn’t understand how it would hail during the summer. And my mother said, ‘I’ll show you what’s going on’ and took me to the front window. It was there I saw a machine gun. And she said, ‘Look at that American flag. Your country is shooting at you.’”
After the riots, Hooker’s 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 navy.
Later Hooker was a founder of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission in hopes of demanding reparations for the massacre survivors.