HOOKS: PEOPLE THANKLESS

Americans have lost their senses of gratitude and ingenuity, the Rev. Benjamin Hooks, a longtime civil rights leader, said Friday.

Hooks, who served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 1977 to 1993, spoke to a crowd of about 200 people at a prayer breakfast at the A.C. Brase Arena Building.

The breakfast kicked off the start of the first River Heritage Regional Black Family Reunion in Cape Girardeau, a three-day affair featuring everything from workshops to a gospel concert.

"I think we have one of the most ungrateful nations, black and white, that the world has ever seen," said Hooks.

Despite continuing problems of crime, drug abuse and racism, black Americans are in far better shape today than they were during the height of segregation 40 years ago, Hooks said.

Much of the credit for that goes to the NAACP, said Hooks. Of all the civil rights organizations, the NAACP is "the most cussed and discussed," he said.

Hooks, who began practicing law in Memphis in 1949, remembered when the only blacks working in the courthouse were janitors and the city's police department was an all-white, all-male force. Today, there are blacks, women and Hispanics in the police department and a number of the judges are black, he said.

Blacks no longer have to walk through the back doors of businesses, he said, and materially, things are better too. Hooks said he was 15 before there was a telephone in his house.

"I went months and didn't have a nickel in my pocket," recalled Hooks. When he was in law school in Chicago, he and other students slept outside on hot summer nights.

Hooks said people in those days made do with what they had. "We had turkey soup, turkey hash and turkey sandwiches."

Old clothes were patched and worn again.

Hooks, who was the first black member of the Federal Communications Commission prior to taking the NAACP post, said racism still exists.

"We are still always the last to be hired and the first to be fired."

Almost half of this nation's prison population is black, even though blacks comprise only 10 percent of the whole population.

He praised President Clinton for tackling the issue of health care. He said the Whitewater controversy has distracted politicians and others from the real issues such as health care.

"Some of you are so busy with Whitewater that you never see clear water," he said.

Hooks, pastor of two Baptist churches, one in Memphis and the other in Detroit, stressed the importance of schooling and religion.

"The gift of God is eternal light," he said.

Following his speech, Hooks defended affirmative action as "a necessary tool" in the civil rights struggle. Without it, he said, many blacks wouldn't be in the jobs they are today.