Longtime Civil Rights Leader Benjamin L. Hooks Dead at The age of 85

Benjamin L. Hooks, a winner of minorities and the poor whose longtime tenure as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) included leading his organization through a deadly firebombing campaign that targeted his group, has died at the age of 85.

State Rep. Ulysses Jones, a family friend, said Benjamin L. Hooks died early Thursday.

Benjamin L. Hooks took over the NAACP in the year 1977 and, by declaring "the civil rights movement is not dead," restored momentum that had flagged after 2 decades of progress toward racial equality.

100s of 1000s of new members joined the NAACP in that period despite a rash of mail bombs in the South that targeted the group and killed 2 people in 1989.

Benjamin L. Hooks was the first black appointee to the Federal Communications Commission in 1972 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the year 2007.