Photo courtesy of the NAACP

MIAMI – Hazel Dukes, former longtime president of the NAACP’s New York chapter and a former neighbor of Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, died on March 1, according to published reports.

She was 92.

Dukes was born in Alabama on March 17, 1932, and was a student at Alabama State Teachers College in 1949, pursuing a degree in education.

She moved with her parents to New York City in 1955 and earned a degree in Business Administration from Nassau Community College.

Dukes became an activist fighting against housing discrimination and later worked for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Head State program in the 1960s.

In 1966, she became the first Black to work at the Nassau County Attorney’s Office and started a non-profit which taught children living in poverty reading and math skills.

From 1989 to 1992, Dukes served as the national president of the NAACP and became the long-time president of the civil rights organization’s New York chapter.

Dukes received a Candace Award for Community Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1990, and in 2023, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton presented Dukes with the Spingarn Medal, the highest honor conveyed by the NAACP.