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Benjamin Lawson Hooks (January 31, 1925 – April 15, 2010) was an American civil rights leader. A Baptist minister and practicing attorney, he served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1977 to 1992, and throughout his career was a vocal campaigner for civil rights in the United States.^[1][2][3]

Early life[link]

Benjamin Hooks was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He was the fifth of seven children of Robert B. Hooks and Bessie White Hooks. His father was a photographer and owned a photography studio with his brother Henry known at the time as Hooks Brothers, and the family was fairly comfortable by the standards of black people for the day. Still, he recalls that he had to wear hand-me-down clothes and that his mother had to be careful to make the dollars stretch to feed and care for the family.

Young Benjamin’s paternal grandmother, Julia Britton Hooks (1852–1942), graduated from Berea College in Kentucky in 1874 and was only the second American black woman to graduate from college. She was a musical prodigy who began playing piano publicly at age five, and at age 18 joined Berea’s faculty, teaching instrumental music 1870–72. Her sister, Dr. Mary E. Britton, also attended Berea, and became a physician in Lexington, Kentucky.

With such a family legacy, young Benjamin was inspired to study hard and prepare himself for college. In his youth, he had felt called to the Christian ministry. His father, however, did not approve and discouraged Benjamin from such a calling.

Benjamin was a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

Education[link]

Hooks enrolled in LeMoyne-Owen College, in Memphis, Tennessee. There he undertook a pre-law course of study 1941–43. In his college years he became more acutely aware that he was one of a large number of Americans who were required to use segregated lunch counters, water fountains, and restrooms. “I wish I could tell you every time I was on the highway and couldn’t use a restroom," he would later recall. "My bladder is messed up because of that. Stomach is messed up from eating cold sandwiches.”

After graduating in 1944 from Howard University, he joined the Army and had the job of guarding Italian prisoners of war. He found it humiliating that the prisoners were allowed to eat in restaurants from which he was barred. He was discharged from the Army after the end of the war with the rank of staff sergeant.

After the war he enrolled at the DePaul University College of Law in Chicago to study law. No law school in his native Tennessee would admit him. He graduated from DePaul in 1948 with his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree.

Legal career[link]

Upon graduation Hooks immediately returned to his native Memphis. By this time he was thoroughly committed to breaking down the practices of racial segregation that existed in the United States. Fighting prejudice at every turn, he passed the Tennessee bar exam and set up his own law practice. “At that time you were insulted by law clerks, excluded from white bar associations and when I was in court, I was lucky to be called Ben,” he recalled in an interview with Jet magazine. “Usually it was just ‘boy.’ [But] the judges were always fair. The discrimination of those days has changed and, today, the South is ahead of the North in many respects in civil rights progress.”

By 1949 Hooks had earned a local reputation as one of the few black lawyers in Memphis. At the Shelby County fair, he met a 24-year-old science teacher by the name of Frances Dancy. They began to date, and soon became inseparable. They were married in Memphis in 1952. Mrs. Hooks recalled in Ebony magazine that her husband was “good looking, very quiet, very intelligent.” She added: “He loved to go around to churches and that type of thing, so I started going with him. He was really a good catch.”

Hooks was a friend and associate of Dr. T.R.M. Howard, the head of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a leading civil rights organization in Mississippi. Hooks attended the RCNL's annual conferences in the all-black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi which often drew crowds of ten thousand or more. In 1954, only days before the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, he appeared on an RCNL-sponsored roundtable, along with Thurgood Marshall, and other black Southern attorneys to formulate possible litigation strategies.

Other endeavors[link]

Hooks still felt the calling to the Christian ministry that he had felt in his youth. He was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1956 and began to preach regularly at the Greater Middle Baptist Church in Memphis, while continuing his busy law practice. He joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (then known as Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration) along with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He also became a pioneer in the NAACP-sponsored restaurant sit-ins and other boycotts of consumer items and services.

In addition to his other roles, he decided to enter Tennessee state politics and ran unsuccessfully for the state legislature in 1954 and for juvenile court judge in 1959 and 1963. Despite his losses, the personable young lawyer and preacher attracted not only black voters but liberal whites as well. By 1965 he was well enough known that Tennessee Governor Frank G. Clement appointed him to fill a vacancy in the Shelby County criminal court. With this he became the first black criminal court judge in Tennessee history. His temporary appointment to the bench expired in 1966 but he campaigned for, and won election to a full term in the same judicial office.

By the late 1960s Hooks was a judge, a businessman, a lawyer, and a minister, but he continued to do more. Twice a month he flew to Detroit to preach at the Greater New Mount Moriah Baptist Church. He also continued to work with the NAACP in civil rights protests and marches. Fortunately for Hooks, his wife Frances matched him in energy and stamina. She became her husband’s assistant, secretary, advisor, and traveling companion, even though it meant sacrificing her own career. “He said he needed me to help him”, she told Ebony. “Few husbands tell their wives that they need them after 30 years of marriage, so I gave it up and here I am, right by his side.”

Hooks had been a producer and host of several local television shows in Memphis in addition to his other duties and was a strong supporter of Republican political candidates. In 1972, President Richard Nixon appointed Hooks to be one of the five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Senate confirmed the nomination, and Benjamin and Frances Hooks moved to Washington, D.C. in 1973. As a member of the FCC, Hooks addressed the lack of minority ownership of television and radio stations, the minority employment statistics for the broadcasting industry, and the image of blacks in the mass media. Hooks completed his five-year term on the board of commissioners in 1978, but he continued to work for black involvement in the entertainment industry.

The NAACP[link]

On November 6, 1976, the 64-member board of directors of the NAACP elected Hooks executive director of the organization. In the late 1970s the membership had declined from a high of about 500,000 to only about 200,000. Hooks was determined to add to the enrollment and to raise money for the organization’s severely depleted treasury, without changing the NAACP’s goals or mandates. “Black Americans are not defeated,” he told Ebony soon after his formal induction in 1977. “The civil rights movement is not dead. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop agitating, they had better think again. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop litigating, they had better close the courts. If anyone thinks that we are not going to demonstrate and protest, they had better roll up the sidewalks.”

In his early years at the NAACP, Hooks had some bitter arguments with Margaret Bush Wilson, chairwoman of the NAACP’s board of directors. At one point in 1983, Wilson summarily suspended Hooks after a quarrel over the organization’s policy. Wilson accused Hooks of mismanagement but the charges were never proven. A majority of the board backed Hooks and he never officially left his post as executive director. He has overseen the organization’s positions on affirmative action, federal aid to cities, foreign relations with repressive governments such as that in South Africa, and domestic policy decisions of every sort. Hooks liked to call himself “just a poor little ol’ country preacher,” but his modesty hardly hid his long list of accomplishments.

In 1980, Hooks explained why the NAACP was against using violence to obtain civil rights:

There are a lot of ways an oppressed people can rise. One way to rise is to study, to be smarter than your oppressor. The concept of rising against oppression through physical contact is stupid and self-defeating. It exalts brawn over brain. And the most enduring contributions made to civilization have not been made by brawn, they have been made by brain.

Views on equality[link]

Early in 1990 Hooks and his family were among the targets in a wave of bombings against civil rights leaders. Hooks visited President George H. W. Bush in the White House to discuss the escalating tensions between races. He emerged from that meeting with the government’s full support against racially motivated bomb attacks, but he was very critical of the administration’s apparent lack of action concerning inner city poverty and lack of support for public education.

On the other hand, Hooks would not lay all the blame for America’s ills at the feet of its elected officials. He has been a staunch advocate of self-help among the black community, urging wealthy and middle-class blacks to give time and resources to those less fortunate. “It’s time today... to bring it out of the closet: No longer can we proffer polite, explicable, reasons why Black America cannot do more for itself,” he told the 1990 NAACP convention delegates. “I’m calling for a moratorium on excuses. I challenge black America today—all of us—to set aside our alibis.”^[4]

By 1991 some younger members of the NAACP thought that Hooks had lost touch with black America and ought to resign. One newspaper wrote: “Critics say the organization is a dinosaur whose national leadership is still living in the glory days of the civil rights movement.” Dr. Frederick Zak, a young local NAACP president, was quoted as saying, “There is a tendency by some of the older people to romanticize the struggle—especially the marching and the picketing and the boycotting and the going to jail.”

Hooks feels that the perilous times of the civil rights movement should never be taken for granted, especially by those who were born in the aftermath of the movement’s gains. “A young black man can’t understand what it means to have something he’s never been denied,’ Hooks told U.S. News & World Report. “I can’t make them understand the mental relief I feel at the rights we have. It almost infuriates me that people don’t understand what integration has done for this country.”

Retirement[link]

Hooks and his wife handled the NAACP’s business and helped to plan for its future for more than 15 years. He told the New York Times that a “sense of duty and responsibility” to the NAACP compelled him to stay in office through the 1990s, but eventually the demands of the executive director position proved too great for a man of his age. In February 1992, at the age of 67, he announced his resignation from the post, calling it “a killing job,” according to the Detroit Free Press. Hooks stated that he would serve out the 1992 year and predicted that a change in leadership would not jeopardize the NAACP’s stability: “We’ve been through some little stormy periods before. I think we’ll overcome it.”

Hooks served as a distinguished adjunct professor for the Political Science department of the University of Memphis. In 1996, the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change was established at the University of Memphis. The Hooks Institute is a public policy research center supporting the urban research mission of the University of Memphis, and honoring Hooks’ many years of leadership in the American Civil Rights Movement. The Institute works to advance understanding of the legacy of the American Civil Rights Movement – and of other movements for social justice – through teaching, research and community programs that emphasize social movements, race relations, strong communities, public education, effective public participation, and social and economic justice.

Hooks also resumed preaching at the Greater Middle Baptist Church in Memphis where he had begun preaching in 1956.

On March 24, 2001, Benjamin Hooks and Frances Hooks renewed their wedding vows for the third time, after nearly 50 years of marriage. The ceremony was held in the Greater Middle Baptist Church in Memphis . Hooks died on April 15, 2010 at 85 years old. His funeral was held at Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ on April 21, 2010.

Professional memberships[link]

• American Bar Association
• National Bar Association
• Tennessee Bar Association
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference
• Tennessee Council on Human Relations

Hooks died when he was 85 years old.

Honors and awards[link]

• Hooks was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1986.

• In 1988, Hooks received an honorary doctorate at Central Connecticut State University.

• NAACP created the Benjamin L. Hooks Distinguished Service Award, which is awarded to persons for efforts in implementing policies and programs which promote equal opportunity.

• University of Memphis created the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change. The Hooks Institute is committed to bringing scholars together to advance the goals of the civil rights movement, to promote human rights and democratic government worldwide, and to honor the lifetime of work of Hooks.

• Hooks received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in November 2007.

• Was inducted in the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site on January 12, 2008^[5]

The Memphis Library's main Branch Is named in his honor.

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, T.R.M. Howard: Pragmatism over Strict Integrationist Ideology in the Mississippi Delta, 1942-1954 in Glenn Feldman, ed., Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South (2004 book), 68-95.
• Biography — University of Memphis
• Biography — The History Makers
• Biography — AfricanAmericans.com
• Biography — The Museum of Broadcast Communications

External links[link]

• Benjamin Hooks' oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
• FBI file on Benjamin Hooks
• A film clip "The Politics of Civil Rights (1983)" is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]

Tavis Smiley
Tavis Smiley, 2011
Born	(1964-09-13) September 13, 1964 (age 47) Gulfport, Mississippi United States
Education	Indiana University (B.A., public affairs, 2003)
Occupation	Talk show host Author Entrepreneur Advocate Philanthropist
Notable credit(s)	Tavis Smiley host (2004–present) The Tavis Smiley Show from PRI (radio) host (2005–present) "Smiley & West" co-host (2010–present) BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley host (1996–2001)
Religion	Christian
Website
http://www.tavistalks.com/

Tavis Smiley (pronounced /ˈtævɨs/; born September 13, 1964) is a talk show host, author, liberal political commentator, entrepreneur, advocate and philanthropist.^[1][2] Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, and grew up in Kokomo, Indiana. After attending Indiana University, he worked during the late 1980s as an aide to Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles. Smiley became a radio commentator in 1991, and starting in 1996, he hosted the talk show BET Talk (later renamed BET Tonight) on BET. Controversially, after Smiley sold an exclusive interview of Sara Jane Olson to ABC News in 2001, BET declined to renew Smiley's contract that year. Smiley then began hosting The Tavis Smiley Show on NPR from 2002 to 2004 and currently hosts Tavis Smiley on PBS on the weekdays and "The Tavis Smiley Show" from PRI. In 2010 Smiley and Dr. Cornel West have joined forces for their own radio talk show, Smiley & West. They were featured together interviewing musician Bill Withers in the 2009 documentary film Still Bill.^[3]

Early years[link]

Tavis Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, the son of Joyce Marie Roberts, a single mother who first became pregnant at age 18.^[4] On September 13, 1966, just shy of his second birthday, his mother married Emory Garnell Smiley, a non-commisioned officer in the U.S. Air Force.^[5] It would not be until a few years later that Tavis would learn the identity of his biological father, whom he identifies in his autobiography, What I Know For Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America only as "T."^[6]

His family soon moved to Indiana because his stepfather had been transferred to Grissom Air Force Base near Peru, Indiana. Upon arriving in Indiana, the Smiley family took up residence in a crowded mobile home in the small town of Bunker Hill, Indiana.^[7] Smiley's immediate family size was increased following the homicide of his aunt, whose death left five children with no stable home. Smiley's parents agreed to take in and raise their five orphaned nieces and nephews. Joyce and her husband also had eight children of their own over the years, resulting at one point in 13 children and Mr. and Mrs. Smiley all living in the trailer-home. Smiley's mother was a very religious person, and the family attended the local New Bethel Tabernacle Church, part of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.^[8] The Smiley children were forbidden from listening to secular music at home and going to the movie theater and could watch television shows that their parents felt were family-friendly.^[9] When Tavis Smiley was in seventh grade, New Bethel pastor Elder Rufus Mills accused Tavis and his siblings of "running wild, disobeying their teacher, disrespecting their teacher, disrespecting the sanctity of this building, and mocking the holy message being taught" during Sunday School.^[10] According to Smiley's account of the incident, Smiley's Sunday School teacher became more confused as she was asking questions about the Book of John, and while other students "responded by giggling and acting a little unruly", he and his sister Phyllis "remained quiet".^[11] Garnell whipped Tavis and Phyllis with an extension cord, wounding the two children.^[12] The next day at school, administrators found out about the children's injuries.^[13] The local newspaper in Kokomo reported on the beating and the legal proceedings against Garnell, and Tavis and Phyllis were sent to foster care temporarily,^[14] Garnell told his children that the judge decided that he had "overreacted" and found he and Joyce as "concerned parents who were completely involved in our children's lives and well-being".^[15]

Smiley became interested in politics at age 13 after attending a fundraiser for U.S. Senator Birch Bayh.^[8] At Maconaquah High School in Bunker Hill, Indiana, a school that Smiley described as "98 percent white",^[16] Smiley was active in student council and the debate team, even though his parents were "skeptical of all non-church extracurricular activities".^[17]

College and political career[link]

In 1982, Smiley enrolled in Indiana University Bloomington (IU). Because Smiley's parents refused to complete financial aid papers, Smiley entered Indiana University with only $50 and a small suitcase.^[18] Administrators let Smiley complete the paperwork to become a full-time student.^[19] The summer after his freshman year, Smiley worked, attended summer classes, and lived off campus with Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball players, then being coached by Bob Knight.^[20] Smiley was accepted into the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity during his sophomore year and became business manager of his dormitory, a member of the student senate, and director of minority affairs.^[21] After his friend Denver Smith was killed by Indiana police officers who claimed to have acted in self-defense, Smiley helped lead protests to defend Smith, whom he believed had been wrongfully killed.^[22] Those protests led Smiley to a work-study internship at the office of Bloomington mayor Tomilea Allison. Being paid $5 an hour, Smiley wrote letters to local residents, researched for Mayor Allison, and helped write positions on local issues. Mayor Allison rebuked Smiley for padding his time sheets and had Smiley work off the extra hours without pay.^[23] During his first semester of junior year, Smiley was under academic probation and blamed his extracurricular activities for interfering with his studies.^[24] When Smiley visited Los Angeles to attend a national student leaders' convention, the cousin of his roommate introduced Smiley to football star Jim Brown. Brown introduced Smiley to fellow football player George Hughley, who worked for Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley and connected Smiley to Mayor Bradley's staff.^[25] Every week since meeting Bradley's staff, Smiley wrote a letter to the mayor's office asking for an internship and once personally flew to Los Angeles to appeal. However, by summertime he received a letter from the city stating that all internship positions were filled.^[26] Smiley then handwrote a letter to the mayor that he said represented his feeling "from the heart", and Bradley called Smiley to say that he had a position available for Smiley.^[27] As the internship was unpaid but counted for college credit, the Bloomington Community Progress Council funded Smiley with $5,000 for living expenses in Los Angeles, and Brown allowed Smiley to live as a houseguest during September 1985. Starting the next month, Smiley lived in the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity house in the University of Southern California. At City Hall, Smiley worked at the Office of Youth Development on the 22nd floor.^[28]

Twice, Smiley considered quitting college, first during junior year,^[29] and then after finishing his internship with Mayor Bradley. Bradley successfully convinced Smiley to return to college, and Smiley did.^[30] Smiley took the LSAT twice, as he was considering attending Harvard Law School.^[31] However, in his senior year, he failed a test in a computer class after being accused of copying another student's, so he failed that class and several others and lacked nine hours of credits and thus did not graduate from IU.^[32] Following a hiring freeze by the government of Los Angeles, Smiley served as an aide to Mayor Bradley until 1990.^[33] A 1988 article in the Los Angeles Times identified Smiley as "a Bradley administrative assistant who works in South Los Angeles".^[34] In 2003, Smiley officially received his degree from Indiana University in public affairs.^[35]

Radio and television career[link]

Campaigning for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council in 1991 against incumbent Ruth Galanter, Smiley finished fourth among 15 candidates. Smiley became a radio commentator, broadcasting one-minute daily radio segments called The Smiley Report on KGFJ radio.^[8] With Ruben Navarrette, Jr., Smiley co-hosted a local talk show in Los Angeles where his strongly held views on race and politics, combined with his arguments regarding the impact of institutional racism and substandard educational and economic opportunities for inner-city black youth, earned him attention on the Los Angeles Times. His commentaries focused on local and national current-affairs issues affecting the African-American community.^[36] For six months, Smiley worked on a community news program on a local cable network and spent six more months working on television in Montreal.^[37]

In 1996, Smiley became a frequent commentator on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, a nationally syndicated radio show broadcast on black and urban stations in the United States.^[38] He developed a friendship with host Joyner; together they began hosting annual town hall meetings beginning in 2000 called "The State of the Black Union", which were aired live on the C-SPAN cable television network. Each of these town hall meetings focused on a specific topic affecting the African-American community, featuring a panel of African-American leaders, educators, and professionals assembled before an audience to discuss problems related to the forum's topic, as well as potential solutions.^[39] Smiley also used his commentator status on Joyner's radio show to launch several advocacy campaigns to highlight discriminatory practices in the media and government and to rally support for causes such as the awarding of a Congressional Gold Medal to civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Smiley also began building a national reputation as a political commentator with numerous appearances on political discussion shows on MSNBC, ABC, and CNN.

Also in 1996, Smiley began hosting and executive producing BET Tonight (originally BET Talk when it first premiered), a public affairs discussion show on the Black Entertainment Television (BET) network. Smiley interviewed major political figures and celebrities and discussed topics ranging from racial profiling and police brutality to R&B music and Hollywood gossip. Smiley hosted BET Tonight until 2001, when in a controversial move, the network announced that Smiley's contract would not be renewed. This sparked an angry response from Joyner, who sought to rally his radio audience to protest BET's decision. Robert L. Johnson, founder of BET, defended the decision, stating that Smiley had been fired because he had sold an exclusive interview to ABC News without first offering the story to BET, even though Smiley's contract with BET did not require him to do so. Smiley countered with the assertion that he had offered the story — an interview with Sara Jane Olson, an alleged former member of the Symbionese Liberation Army — to CBS, which, along with BET, was owned by Viacom. Smiley ultimately sold the interview to rival network ABC, he said, only after CBS passed on the interview, and suggested that his firing was payback for the publicity he gained as a result of providing an exclusive interview to ABC.^[40] Ultimately BET and Viacom did not reverse their decision to terminate Smiley's contract.

Smiley was then offered a chance to host a radio talk show on National Public Radio. He served as host of The Tavis Smiley Show on NPR until December 2004 when he announced that he would be leaving his NPR show, citing the network's inability to reach a more diverse audience.^[41] Smiley launched a weekly version of his radio program The Tavis Smiley Show on April 29, 2005, distributed by NPR rival Public Radio International. On October 1, 2010, Tavis Smiley turned the second hour of his PRI program into Smiley & West co-hosted by his longtime collaborator Dr. Cornel West. Smiley also hosts Tavis Smiley, a late night talk show televised on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network and produced in association with WNET in New York.^[42]

Smiley moderated two live presidential candidate forums in 2007: a Democratic forum on June 28 at Howard University in Washington, D.C.,^[43] and a Republican forum on September 27 at Morgan State University in Baltimore.^[44]

Smiley appears on the Democracy Now! show.^[45]

Controversy over Presidential Candidate Barack Obama[link]

On April 11, 2008, Tavis Smiley announced that he would resign in June 2008 as a commentator on the Tom Joyner Morning Show. He cited fatigue and a busy schedule in a personal call to Joyner. However, Joyner, referring to several commentaries in which Smiley was critical of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, indicated otherwise on his program, stating: "The real reason is that he can't take the hate he's been getting regarding the Barack issue—hate from the black people that he loves so much."^[46] Prior to the public controversy and being elected President, Obama had been on Smiley's PBS show six times.

In 2012, Smiley participated in a "Poverty Tour" with Princeton University professor Cornel West in promoting their book The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto. The stated aim of the tour was to highlight the plight of the impoverished population of the United States prior to the 2012 Presidential Election, whose candidates Smiley and West stated had ignored the plight of the poor.^{[47][48][49][50]}

[edit] The Covenant with Black America

In March 2006, The Smiley Group and Third World Press published The Covenant with Black America, a collection of essays by black scholars and professionals edited by Smiley. The book covered topics ranging from education to healthcare. The book was a New York Times Bestseller.^[51]

Awards and contributions[link]

Smiley was honored with the NAACP Image Award for best news, talk, or information series for three consecutive years (1997–99) for his work on BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley.

Smiley's advocacy efforts have earned him numerous awards and recognitions including the recipient of the Mickey Leland Humanitarian Award from the National Association of Minorities in Communications.

In 1999, he founded the Tavis Smiley Foundation, which funds programs that develop young leaders in the black community. Since its inception, more than 6,000 young people have participated in the foundation's Youth to Leaders Training workshops and conferences.

His communications company, The Smiley Group, Inc., serves as the holding company for various enterprises encompassing broadcast and print media, lecturers, symposiums, and the Internet.

In 1994, Time named Smiley one of America's 50 Most Promising Young Leaders.^[52] Time would later honor him in 2009 as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World". In May 2007, Smiley gave a commencement speech at his alma mater, Indiana University at Bloomington, Indiana (the university recently honored Smiley by naming the atrium of its School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) building, The Tavis Smiley Atrium).

In May 2008, he gave the commencement address at Connecticut College, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate. In May 2009, Smiley was awarded an honorary doctorate at Langston University after giving the commencement address there.

On December 12, 2008, Smiley received the Du Bois Medal from Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

He would also be awarded the 2009 Interdependence Day Prize from Demos in Istanbul, Turkey.

Smiley would be named No. 2 change agent in the field of media behind Oprah Winfrey in EBONY Magazine's POWER 150 list.

Bibliography[link]

• Just a Thought: The Smiley Report (ISBN 0-963-69523-1)
• Doing What's Right: How to Fight for What You Believe—And Make a Difference (ISBN 0-385-49931-0)
• Hard Left (ISBN 0-385-48404-6)
• Keeping the Faith: Stories of Love, Courage, Healing, and Hope from Black America (ISBN 0-385-72169-2)
• How to Make Black America Better: Leading African Americans Speak Out (ISBN 0-385-72087-4)
• On Air:The Best of Tavis Smiley on the Tom Joyner Morning Show (ISBN 1-890194-33-6)
• The Covenant with Black America (ISBN 0-88378-277-4)
• What I Know for Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America (ISBN 978-0-385-50516-1; ISBN 0-388-50516-7)
• Accountable: Making America As Good As Its Promise
• Fail Up (ISBN 1-401-93390-4)
• The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto (with Cornel West) (ISBN 1-401940-63-3)

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• LaRue, William. "Tavis Smiley: NPR Host Brings Latenight Talk to PBS". The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York), 1 February 2004, STARS section, pp. 4–6.
• Slade, Scott. "Author Issues Wakeup Call". Kokomo Tribune (Indiana), 20 June 1996, p. 7.
• Smiley, Tavis (2006), What I Know For Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America, New York City, New York, United States: Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-50516-7, http://books.google.com/books?id=lBHwtgmBJ1IC </ref>

External links[link]

• Official website
• Tavis Smiley on Twitter
• Tavis Smiley on WNET/PBS
• Appearances on C-SPAN
  • Booknotes interview with Smiley on Doing What's Right, April 9, 2000.
  • C-SPAN Q&A interview with Smiley, October 29, 2006
• Tavis Smiley on Charlie Rose
• Tavis Smiley at NPR
• Works by or about Tavis Smiley in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Tavis Smiley: The State of the Black Union Interview
• Tavis Smiley on Rev. Martin Luther King and His Opposition to the Vietnam War - video by Democracy Now!

Dorothy I. Height
Born	Dorothy Irene Height (1912-03-24)March 24, 1912 Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Died	April 20, 2010(2010-04-20) (aged 98) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Occupation	Educator and social activist

Dorothy Irene Height (March 24, 1912 – April 20, 2010)^[1] was an American administrator, educator, and social activist. She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for forty years, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.^[1]

Early life[link]

Height was born in Richmond, Virginia. At a very early age, she moved with her family to Rankin, Pennsylvania, a steel town in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Height was admitted to Barnard College in 1929, but upon arrival, she was denied entrance because the school had an unwritten policy of admitting only two black students per year.^[2] She pursued studies instead at New York University, earning a degree in 1932, and a master's degree in educational psychology the following year.^[3] Height pursued further postgraduate work at Columbia University and the New York School of Social Work (the predecessor of the Columbia University School of Social Work).^[4]

Career[link]

Height started working as a caseworker with the New York City Welfare Department and, at the age of twenty-five, she began a career as a civil rights activist when she joined the National Council of Negro Women. She fought for equal rights for both African Americans and women, and in 1944 she joined the national staff of the YWCA. She also served as National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority from 1946 to 1957.^[5] She remained active with Delta Sigma Theta Sorority throughout her life. While there she developed leadership training programs and interracial and ecumenical education programs.^[5]

In 1957, Height was named president of the National Council of Negro Women, a position she held until 1997. During the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Height organized "Wednesdays in Mississippi",^[6] which brought together black and white women from the North and South to create a dialogue of understanding.

American leaders regularly took her counsel, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Height also encouraged President Dwight D. Eisenhower to desegregate schools and President Lyndon B. Johnson to appoint African American women to positions in government. In the mid 1960s, Height wrote a column entitled "A Woman's Word" for the weekly African-American newspaper, the New York Amsterdam News and her first column appeared in the March 20, 1965 issue on page 8.

Height served on a number of committees, including as a consultant on African affairs to the Secretary of State, the President's Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, and the President's Committee on the Status of Women. In 1974, Height was named to the National Council for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which published The Belmont Report, a response to the infamous "Tuskegee Syphilis Study" and an international ethical touchstone for researchers to this day.

Later life[link]

The Dorothy I. Height Building, headquarters of the National Council of Negro Women, located on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

In 1990, Height, along with 15 other African American women and men, formed the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom.^[7] Height was recognized by Barnard for her achievements as an honorary alumna during its commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 2004.^[2]

The musical stage play If This Hat Could Talk, based on her memoirs Open Wide The Freedom Gates, debuted in the middle of 2005. It showcases her unique perspective on the civil rights movement and details many of the behind-the-scenes figures and mentors who shaped her life, including Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Height was the chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the largest civil rights organization in the USA. She was an honored guest at the inauguration of President Barack Obama on January 20, 2009 and was seated on the stage. ^[1]

She attended the National Black Family Reunion, celebrated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., every year until her death in 2010.^{[citation needed]}

On March 25, 2010 Height was admitted to Howard University Hospital in Washington D.C. for unspecified reasons. Her spokeswoman issued a statement stating that at that time she was in a "very serious, but stable" condition but that they were remaining optimistic about her recovery. On April 20, 2010, Height died at the age of ninety-eight. Her funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral on April 29, 2010 was attended by President and Mrs. Obama plus many dignitaries and notable people.^[8] She was later interred at Fort Lincoln Cemetery.

Awards and honors[link]

• Presidential Citizens Medal (1989)
• Spingarn Medal from the NAACP (1993)
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt Freedom From Want Award (1993)
• inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame (1993)
• Presidential Medal of Freedom (1994)^[1]
• 7th Annual Heinz Award Chairman's Medal (2001)^[9]
• Listed on Molefi Kete Asante's list of 100 Greatest African Americans (2002)^[10]
• Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush on behalf of the United States Congress (Approved, 2003) (Awarded, 2004)^[1]
• 2009 Foremothers Lifetime Achievement Award from the NRC for Women & Families^[11]
• Upon her death, President Barack Obama ordered flags to be flown at half-mast on April 29, 2010 in her honor.
• On May 21, 2010, a Call Box was dedicated to Dr. Height. The Call Box is located on 7th Street, SW, in front of the last building in which Height lived.^[12]

References[link]

External links[link]

• National Council for Science and the Environment
• Dorothy Height - Daily Telegraph obituary
• African Events Congressional Gold Medal Award for Dorothy Height
• Dorothy Height's oral history video excerpts, The National Visionary Leadership Project
• Dorothy Height's Videos
• Legacy: Black and White in America, a documentary featuring Dorothy Height
• Flag Half-Staff Day Order by President Barack Obama
• Dorothy Height (1912–2010): Civil Rights Leader Remembered for Lifelong Activism- video report by Democracy Now!
• Dorothy I. Height, Unsung Heroine
• Booknotes interview with Height on Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir, August 3, 2003.

Sources[link]

• Height, Dorothy. Open Wide the Freedom Gates: A Memoir.
• Tracey A. Fitzgerald, The National Council of Negro Women and the Feminist Movement, 1935–1975, Georgetown University Press, 1985.
• Judith Weisenfeld, "Dorothy Height", Black Women in America: Profiles, MacMillan Library Reference USA, New York, 1999, pp. 128–130.
• Legacy: Black and White in America, a documentary featuring Dorothy Height.