Waters: University of Memphis releasing papers of late Benjamin Hooks

It's difficult to say which photograph the late Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks would find more surreal today.

The 1980 photo of him shaking hands in the Oval Office with President Reagan, a man whose policies and politics he roundly condemned back then.

Or the 1987 photo of him standing beside future president Donald Trump, a man whose policies and politics he would have roundly condemned today.

Both are part of the new Benjamin Lawson Hooks Papers, a massive collection that has been digitized and made available to the public.

Both photographs were taken when Hooks, born and raised in Memphis, was national executive director of the NAACP.

Both are eery reminders of efforts -- then and now -- to shift the movement from civil rights to economic justice.

"Today, we're free but not equal," said Rev. Jesse Jackson, a friend and colleague of Hooks.

Jackson was in Memphis Monday to commemorate the 49th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  The struggle for economic justice that began with King in Memphis continued with Hooks in the 1980s.

Hooks, who died in 2010, led the NAACP's battles against Reagan's economic policies -- so-called Reaganomics -- which included tax cuts for the rich and cuts in social programs for the poor.

The Hooks Papers is a joint project of the Hooks Institute for Social Change and the University of Memphis was years in the making.

Imagine reading and analyzing, scanning and cataloging 397 boxes of materials filled with more than 197,000 documents, photographs, audio recordings and miscellany.

"It look a little longer than we thought, but it's now the largest collection on a single topic at the university," said William C. Love, collection specialist.

The largest and perhaps the most significant.

Most of the collection focuses on Hooks' tenure as NAACP leader, from 1977-92.

The photo of Hooks shaking Reagan's hand was taken at the White House in late 1980.

The photo of Hooks standing between Trump and his first wife, Ivana, was taken at Trump Tower in 1987.

Trump was chairman of the host committee for the NAACP's 1987 convention in New York City.

Jackson spoke to the convention that year as a Democratic candidate for president.

Jackson campaigned against Reaganomics in 1988, and won over enough white, blue-collar voters to win seven primaries and four caucuses.

"Trump's budget would cut taxes on the rich and cut social programs, education, housing for the poor," Jackson said.

"Trump has a $15 billion Cabinet, and its first mission is to turn down health care for 24 million Americans? That's vulgar."

If he were alive today, Hooks likely would use the same language.

The Hooks Papers includes Hooks' copy of Reagan's speech to the 1981 NAACP convention in Denver.

During the speech, Hooks wrote margin notes in blue ink.

Reagan said: "I genuinely and deeply believe the economic package we have put forth will move us toward black economic freedom."

Hooks wrote: JOKE

Reagan said: "Americans have been very generous with good intentions and billions of dollars ... Yet in spite of the money and the hopes, the government has never lived up to the dreams of poor people."

Hooks wrote: WHY

Reagan said: "If productivity had not stopped growing and started downhill after 1965, the GNP today would be $850 billion bigger...And this all would have happened with the compliments of the private sector."

Hooks wrote: PRODUCTIVITY STOP GROWING BECAUSE OF GREED

"Dr. Hooks's political and social criticism was informed by his religious training," said Daphene R. McFerren, executive director of the Hooks Institute.

In his 1981 speech to the NAACP, Reagan said he wanted to end the "bondage" of government programs by helping business and industry bring about an "economic emancipation" for African-Americans.

After the speech, Hooks said Reagan's economic policies "are setting into motion forces that are bound to wreak additional hardship, havoc, despair, pain and suffering on that huge body of the poor and the working poor of which blacks and other minorities are a disproportionate share."

Hooks, a pastor by vocation, a lawyer and judge by training, knew how to discern the difference between what is preached and what is practiced.

Thanks to the Hooks Papers, it's a lesson he's still preaching and teaching.