CNN.com
By Mark Bixler, CNN
April 15, 2010 10:50 a.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Civil rights leader Benjamin L. Hooks led NAACP from 1977 to 1992
The cause of Hooks' death was not immediately known, NAACP official says
Hooks received Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 2007
World War II service deepened "resolve to do something about bigotry in the South," bio says
(CNN) -- Benjamin L. Hooks, a civil rights leader who led the NAACP from 1977 to 1992, has died, said the vice president for communication at the NAACP.
The cause of death was not immediately known, the NAACP's Leila McDowell said Thursday.
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.
Full Story: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/15/obit.benjamin.hooks/index.html
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