Renowned civil rights leader Benjamin L. Hooks, former executive director of the NAACP died on Thursday in Memphis at 85 years old.

The leader, who barreled through courtroom racism as a young lawyer, to earning the title of judge and reviving a wavering NAACP, died at his home following a long illness.

President Obama said in a statement, “Our national life is richer for the time Dr. Hooks spent on this earth,” adding that “our union is more perfect for the way he spent it: Giving a voice to the voiceless.”

Hooks became NAACP's executive director in 1977 when the organization’s position as a formidable activist group was waning. By then, the NAACP was looking at $1 million debt and a steep drop in membership from about half-million 10 years earlier, to a mere 200,000.

Fifteen years later, when Hooks left the NAACP, it had transformed with a growing membership and a much stronger foundation.

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said of Hooks, "Right up to the last, he conveyed... the need for us to fight."

But this desire and inspiration to fight for social justice came from his service during World War II, where he was guarding Italian prisoners who were allowed to eat in “for whites only” restaurants – from which he was barred.

The opportunity to study law came no easier, as he was not accepted by law schools in the South. But he used the GI bill to attend DePaul University in Chicago and earned his law degree 1948. Subsequently he opened his own practice in Memphis.

There were many firsts for Hooks, including becoming the first person to serve on the Federal Communications Commission in 1972. Among his other achievements is an initiative he created that gave more employment opportunities to Blacks in Major League Baseball.

In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded Hooks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom one of the country's highest civilian honors.