× Thanks for reading! Log in to continue. Enjoy more articles by logging in or creating a free account. No credit card required. Log in Sign up {{featured_button_text}}

GREENBURGH, N.Y. — When you're Olivia Hooker, it's OK to talk about age, especially as she's achieved so much and still has an engaging smile and strong mind.

Hooker turned 102 years old on Sunday — sharing a birthday with President Abraham Lincoln and an incredible history of being a great American patriot.

Hooker was born in 1915 in Muskogee, Oklahoma. This centenarian has had a front seat to some of America’s most challenging moments, fighting racial injustice and becoming a female trailblazer.

"It’s astonishing because you meet challenges that you never expected," says Hooker.

At just 6 years old, Hooker lived through the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot — which she calls a massacre. Ku Klux Klan members destroyed Hooker's family home.

“They were furious when they came in our home and my mother was cooking and not running away," she says. "They took the food and dumped it in the mud and then they came back and took her nice flaky biscuits out of the oven and dumped them out on the dirt.

"We were hiding under the table where she put us, and we could see all this; well, it didn’t astonish my older sister and brother because they knew about things."

Karen Roberts email: kroberts@lohud.com Twitter: @krhudsonvalley