The great black civil rights icon Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks has died at the age of 85.A prominent lawyer and ordained Baptist minister who joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Hooks also worked as a judge and served as the first African American commissioner on the FCC. His most lasting legacy, however, was shepherding the NAACP over a challenging 15-year period of political and social change for the entire nation.
An American hero, Benjamin Hooks was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1925 and grew up in the segregated South.
According to CNN, he went on to served in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he "found himself in the humiliating position of guarding Italian prisoners of war who were allowed to eat in restaurants that were off limits to him. The experience helped to deepen his resolve to do something about bigotry in the South," according to a biography published by the University of Memphis, where he was a professor in the political science department.
When no law school in the South would admit him, he used the GI bill to attend DePaul University in Chicago, where he earned a law degree in 1948. He later opened his own law practice in his hometown of Memphis.
"At that time you were insulted by law clerks, excluded from white bar associations and when I was in court, I was lucky to be called 'Ben,'" he once said in an interview with Jet magazine. "Usually it was just 'boy.'"
The NAACP "was suffering from declining membership and prestige when Hooks assumed his role as executive director," the University of Memphis biography said. But the organization would ultimately rebound, adding several hundred thousand new members under his leadership.During Hooks' tenure, the civil rights organization worked with Major League Baseball on a program that expanded employment opportunities for African-Americans in baseball, including in positions as managers, coaches and in franchise executive offices, the NAACP said.
"Black Americans are not defeated," he told Ebony magazine soon after his induction. "The civil rights movement is not dead. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop agitating, they had better think again. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop litigating, they had better close the courts. If anyone thinks that we are not going to demonstrate and protest, they had better roll up the sidewalks."
Hooks also created an initiative that expanded employment opportunities for blacks in Major League Baseball and launched a program where corporations participated in economic development projects in black communities.
In 1965 prior to his stint with the NAACP, Hooks was appointed to a newly created seat on the Tennessee Criminal Court, making him the first black judge since Reconstruction in a state trial court anywhere in the South.President Richard Nixon nominated Hooks to the Federal Communications Commission in 1972. He was its first black commissioner, and his ability to articulately address the lack of minority jobs and ownership in media persuaded the commission to propose a new rule requiring TV and radio stations to be offered publicly before they could be sold. Minority employment in broadcasting grew from 3 percent to 15 percent during his tenure.
Current FCC Chairman Julius Genachowdki remarked: "The nation lost a great leader today in the passing of civil rights champion and former FCC Commissioner Benjamin L. Hooks. His historic appointment as the first African-American commissioner forever changed the FCC, reminding us of our mission to promote the interests of all Americans.
"During his five-year tenure at the FCC in the early 1970s, Mr. Hooks worked tirelessly to expand opportunities for minorities and the poor, communities that had long been without a strong voice at the agency or in the media landscape. He was a fierce advocate for minority broadcast ownership and increasing minority employment in the broadcast industry."
In 1977, Hooks left the FCC to helm the NAACP. It was there that he held court on a national and international stage. As history has demonstrated, he was clearly the right man for the job.
After he retired in 1992, his work did not stop there. Just last year, Hooks urged the FCC to remember that broadband access and adoption are essential to full civic participation in our society, reminding us all that there is still more that the FCC can do to realize a communications landscape which truly represents America's rich, vibrant diversity.
"In honor of Mr. Hooks' lifelong commitment to advancing the participation and rights of minorities and the poor, in 2002, the FCC renamed our Blacks in Government Chapter the FCC-Benjamin Hooks Chapter."
Tyrone Brown, president of Media Access Project and also a former FCC commissioner, said of Hooks: "Ben Hooks was a dedicated public servant and a true gentleman. His commitment to full participation by minority Americans in all aspects of radio, TV, and telecommunications - as technicians and programmers, as talent, editors and owners - set the foundation for a discussion that continues to this day. He showed me, his successor at the FCC, how civil debate can win majorities where table pounding might not."
Hooks later was chairman of the board of directors of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and helped create The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis.
In his last keynote speech at the 1992 NAACP national convention, Hooks urged members who had found financial success to never forget those less fortunate.
"Remember," he said, "that down in the valley where crime abounds and dope proliferates ... where babies are having babies, our brothers and sisters are crying to us, 'Is anyone listening? Does anyone care?'"
"As a civil rights activist, public servant and minister of the gospel, Dr. Hooks has extended the hand of fellowship throughout his years," Bush said. "It was not an always thing -- easy thing to do. But it was always the right thing to do."
Job well done Dr. Hooks. Rest in peace!
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