Benjamin L Hooks

The fifth of seven children of Robert and Bessie Hooks. His father’s photography business gave the family a stable middle-class grounding, allowing Mr. Hooks to attend LeMoyne College in Memphis. After serving three years in the Army during World War II and rising to staff sergeant, Mr. Hooks attended law school at DePaul University, graduating in 1948. In 1951, while working as a lawyer with his own practice in Memphis, he wed Frances Dancy. An ordained Baptist minister, Mr. Hooks was long the resident minister at two churches, one in Detroit and the other in Memphis. In the 1950s, while practicing law, he entered state politics, running unsuccessfully for the Tennessee legislature and for a judgeship on Juvenile Court. In 1965 Gov. Frank G. Clement appointed him to fill a vacancy in the Shelby County Criminal Court, making him the first black criminal court judge in Tennessee history. He won election to a full term the next year. Mr. Hooks also became involved in the civil rights movement, participating in sit-ins, boycotts and other demonstrations sponsored by the N.A.A.C.P. Dr. King recruited him to serve on the board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the driving force of the civil rights movement. President Richard M. Nixon appointed Mr. Hooks, a Nixon supporter, to the Federal Communications Commission in 1972. When Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976, Mr. Hooks was so widely thought to be in line to head the F.C.C. that some commissioners began calling him Mr. Chairman. But he upended expectations when, in 1977, he accepted an offer by the N.A.A.C.P. board to take over the helm of the association from an ailing Roy Wilkins, an esteemed figure in the civil rights movement. in 1992, Mr. Hooks again became embroiled in a fight with the board, this time under the chairmanship of William Gibson, over the day-to-day running of the organization. When the board backed Mr. Gibson, Mr. Hooks resigned. In 1996, Mr. Hooks helped establish the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change, a public policy research center at the University of Memphis. And in his later years he drew honors for his work on behalf of minority rights. In 2007, President George W. Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. He is survived by his wife, Frances; a daughter, Patricia Gray; and his sister, Mildred Hooks Gillis.