Benjamin Hooks
Benjamin L. Hooks, a civil rights leader who led the NAACP from 1977 to 1992, has died. Hooks was "a vocal campaigner for civil rights in the United States," said the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1925, Hooks grew up in the segregated South.
Hooks 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.
He also was a lawyer and an ordained Baptist minister who joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and led the NAACP for 15 years. During his 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.
He also worked with colleagues to set up a program in which more than 200 corporations agreed to participate in economic development projects in black communities, the NAACP said.
President George W. Bush awarded Hooks the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in November 2007.
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