Meet The Last Surviving Witness To The Tulsa Race Riot Of 1921
Olivia Hooker was 6 at the time of the riot. Now, at 103, Hooker is believed to be the last surviving witness to what is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history.
On May 31, 1921, six-year-old Olivia Hooker was home with her family in Tulsa, Okla., when a group of white men came through the backyard carrying torches. Her mother quickly hid Olivia and her three siblings under the dining room table, covering them with a tablecloth and told them not to make a sound.
"It was a horrifying thing for a little girl who's only six years old," she told Radio Diaries, "trying to remember to keep quiet, so they wouldn't know we were there."
