Benjamin Lawson Hooks was nominated as a member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by President Richard M. Nixon in 1972. Shortly thereafter the U.S. The Senate confirmed the nomination, and Hooks became the first African American to be appointed to the commission. He served as a member of the FCC until July 27, 1977.

    During his tenure on the commission, Hooks actively promoted the employment of African Americans and other minorities in the broadcast industry as well as at the FCC offices. He also encouraged minority ownership of broadcast properties. Hooks supported the Equal Time provision and the Fairness Doctrine, both of which he believed were among the few avenues available to minorities to gain access to the broadcast media.

     Hooks received his undergraduate degree from LeMoyne College in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. However, because Tennessee at that time prohibited blacks from entering law school, he attended DePaul University in Chicago. He returned to Tennessee to serve as a public defender in Shelby County. From 1964 to 1968 he was a county criminal judge.

     The nomination and confirmation of Hooks to the FCC represented the culmination of efforts by African­ American organizations such as Black Efforts for Soul on Television (BEST), to have an African American appointed to one of the seven seats on the commission. Before Hooks's appointment, there had been no minority representation on the commission and only two women, Frieda Hennock and Charlotte Reid, had been appointed up to that time.

     Riding a wave created by the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (1968), otherwise known as the Kerner Commission, which itself was a reaction to the civil unrest of the 1960s, African­ American organizations such as BEST lobbied aggressively for an African-American appointment to the Federal Communications Commission. Under a sec­ tion titled "The Negro in the Media," the Kerner Commisision urged that African-Americans be integrated "into all aspects of televised presentations." African­ American organizations knew that in order to achieve such a goal, representation on the policy-making body that governed broadcasting was critical. However, when it was announced that Benjamin Hooks was one of three African Americans considered for a seat on the FCC, BEST expressed some strong reservations about his candidacy. Leaders of the organization did not believe that Hooks was qualified to serve on the commission and instead favored the appointment of Ted Ledbetter, a Washington, D.C., communications consultant. The third candidate considered for the position was Revius Ortique, an attorney from New Orleans. Although there are no set criteria for qualifying as a candidate for the FCC, it was believed by BEST that Hooks did not have the experience or expertise in broadcasting necessary to be an effective commissioner. However, while far from being an industry insider, Hooks was not entirely new to broadcasting.

     In addition to being a lawyer and minister, Hooks had been a popular local television personality before being considered for the FCC post. He hosted a weekly half-hour program, Conversations in Black and White, on the station WMC-TV in Memphis. He had also appeared as a panelist on a broadcast of the program What Is Your Faith?, which aired on WREC-TV in Memphis. The presence of Hooks on the commission meant that organizations previously outside the policy­ making process in broadcasting finally had access. The National Media Coalition, Citizens Communications Center, and the United Church of Christ all felt that their cases would at least get a fair hearing, because of Hooks.

     Although he was a spokesman for the perspectives of blacks, women, and Latinos with respect to broadcasting policies, relations between Hooks and these groups were not always friendly. Two of his decisions while on the commission stand out as especially difficult for Hooks. The first was his vote to uphold the First Amendment and not censor a political candidate for the U.S. Senate in the Georgia primary. As part of his political campaign, senatorial candidate J.B. Stoner produced and aired television and radio spots that re­ferred to African Americans as "niggers." Understandably, African Americans and other groups wanted the spots banned by the FCC. Hooks, however, felt that supporting freedom of speech was more important than banning the spots. In a New York Times interview, he suggested that "even if it hurts sometimes, I'm a great believer in free speech and would never do anything to tamper with it." He argued that in the long run, banning the spots would prove more detrimental to blacks and other groups than allowing them to air.

     The second major decision that proved controversial during his stint on the FCC involved broadcasters and the rules related to Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO). Prior to 1976, stations with five or more employees were required to file a statistical report, including the number of employees by race and gender, with the commission. In 1976 the commission proposed to raise the number that would trigger this reporting requirement. It also proposed that such stations should have an EEO-approved strategy for increasing minority representation at the stations. Citizens' groups felt the FCC was easing its restrictions regarding minority hiring practices on smaller stations. They asked Commissioner Hooks not to support the new policy. Hooks decided that the new rules would have an overall positive impact on the hiring of minorities and women, so he supported the new policies, except for the section no longer requiring stations with fewer than 50 employees to file EEO programs.

     While Hooks served on the commission, broadcast ownership groups that included minorities were given preferential treatment by the FCC, an office of Equal Employment Opportunity was set up, and the employment of blacks by the Federal Communications Commission offices increased. After serving five years of his seven-year term, Hooks resigned from the FCC to become the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). His plans were to establish a communications department in the NAACP in order "to see how we can make television more responsive to the people, black and white."

     The appointment of Hooks to the FCC must be seen as one part of a long history of demands for access to the broadcast media by African Americans. While African Americans had at times been included in the "television family," their roles had too often been lim­ ited to stereotypical portrayals that were thought to contribute to distorted images of the black experience. Organizing and lobbying for an African-American appointment to the FCC was a continuation of a political and social process. The appointment of Benjamin Hooks symbolized a crystallization of those efforts, and while it would be incorrect to state that with his appointment all barriers to minority access were knocked down, it would be equally incorrect not to recognize that the appointment of Benjamin Hooks did lead to increased access for African Americans and other minorities in the field of broadcasting.