Norton Issues Statement Commemorating the Leadership of Benjamin Hooks (4/15/2010)

Norton Issues Statement Commemorating the Leadership of Benjamin Hooks

WASHINGTON, DC - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) issued the following statement on the passing of Benjamin Hooks, former executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Benjamin Hooks spent a lifetime breaking barriers, before heading our largest civil rights organization, as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1977 to 1992. Before leading the NAACP, Ben's lifetime experiences paved the way- as a lawyer, before blacks were admitted to bar associations in the North or South, as the first black state judge since Reconstruction in the South, and as the first black Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission. However, Ben Hooks, who was also a minister, was never content to be merely among the ‘firsts.' He grew the membership of the NAACP and led the organization to regain its prominence in the tough years following the height of the civil rights movement. Ben Hooks' lifetime of leadership reached its pinnacle at the NAACP. We have all been beneficiaries of his magnificent service.