Civil rights warrior
Philadelphia Inquirer: Another civil rights icon is gone with the death Thursday of the Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks, one of the NAACP’s most effective leaders.
Hooks was 85. From 1977 to 1992, he ran the NAACP with a dynamism that saw it erase a $1 million debt and grow its ranks from 200,000 to a half-million. The NAACP today looks fondly on those achievements, even as its relevance in the 21st century is questioned.
Hooks never conceded that an NAACP is no longer needed. After the arrest last year of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Hooks noted that black people still get hassled for being “uppity” when they don’t respond quickly to the commands of whites.
A native of Memphis, Hooks earned his undergraduate degree at LeMoyne-Owen College, and after serving in the Army in World War II, received a law degree from DePaul University. He was called to the ministry after joining the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and was ordained a Baptist minister in 1956.
FCC commissioner
In 1965, he became a judge in Shelby County, Tenn., and in 1972 was the first African-American appointed to the Federal Communications Commission. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1972.
Hooks should be remembered as the outstanding citizen that he was.
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