FILE- In this May 10, 2005, file photo survivor of the 1921 Tulsa race riots, Dr. Olivia Hooker, 90, gives her personal account of the of the historic race riot at 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)
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — One of the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race riot, one of the worst race riots in U.S. history, has died at age 103.
Olivia Hooker was 6 years old when the late-spring riot destroyed much of a Tulsa neighborhood that had been known as “Black Wall Street.” She told National Public Radio in an interview this year that she hid under a table as a mob of torch-carrying people destroyed her family’s home.
The violence began after a black man allegedly assaulted a white woman in an elevator. The number of deaths was never confirmed and varies from about three dozen to 300.
Hooker’s goddaughter, Janis Porter, says her godmother died Wednesday at their home in White Plains, New York. Porter didn’t provide a cause of death.
