In one sense, Benjamin L. Hooks, the former Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who died April 15, at 85, was a spectacular example of successes of the twentieth-century African-American freedom struggle.

Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks, Photo by Alan Spearman

He was born in Memphis, when segregationist attitudes and policies held virtually unchallenged sway in American society, but in time he would, by virtue of the law degree he had earned, become a criminal court judge in his native city – the first black American appointed to the bench in Tennessee history. As a colleague and confidant of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and a lifelong NAACP member, Hooks, who was also a Baptist minister, played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. A Republican, Hooks was appointed in 1972 by President Nixon to the Federal Communications Commission, the first black to hold such a position, where he vigorously pushed to expand opportunities for Americans of color to gain broadcast licenses. There, his deft political skills made him made him a widely-expected choice to become the agency’s chairman when Jimmy Carter, a fellow Southerner, won the Presidency. However, when the board of the NAACP asked him to replace the ailing Roy Wilkins as its leader, Hooks did not hesitate to take what he considered the more vital post.

After President Carter’s term ended in 1980, the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, proved difficult for gaining ground on civil rights and were marked by several personal challenges to his leadership.

But none can deny the many substantive achievements of his long service to the cause of freedom and equality in America. Words he spoke in his final speech as head of the NAACP in 1992 are fitting: “I have fought the good fight,” he said. “I have kept the faith.”