Benjamin L. Hooks dead news

Benjamin Hooks, a civil rights leader who led the NAACP from 1977 to 1992, has died, said Leila McDowell, the vice president for communication at the NAACP.

The cause of Benjamin Hooks's death was not immediately known, 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.

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.