Post Mortem - Civil rights leader Benjamin Hooks dies: Benjamin Hooks, longtime NAACP director and champion of minorities and the poor, died early this morning at his home in Tennessee. He was 85.Dr. Hooks was a lawyer and preacher who became one of the country's great civil rights leaders. In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the country.
"Dr. Hooks was a calm yet forceful voice for fairness, opportunity and personal responsibility," said George W. Bush, presenting Dr. Hooks the Presidential Medal of Freedom. "He never tired or faltered in demanding that our nation live up to its founding ideals of liberty and equality."
