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Herman Hill; USC’s First Black Basketball Player Was Activist

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Herman Hill, the first black basketball player at USC and later a journalist and publicist who crusaded for civil rights, has died in Los Angeles after a battle with Parkinson’s disease, a family friend said Monday.

Hill, 85, died Saturday at home, said Brad Pye Jr., who is an aide to Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

In the 1929-30 season, Hill became the first black to letter in basketball at USC. He was also a high jumper on the school’s 1931 national championship track and field team.

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He earned a degree in business administration in 1931 and became West Coast editor for the Pittsburgh Courier, an African-American weekly newspaper with a national readership.

As a journalist in 1949, Hill helped to lead a movement that resulted in the Los Angeles Rams signing the team’s first black players, Woody Strode and Kenny Washington, both outstanding athletes at UCLA, Pye said.

“You’re out there and you see discrimination and injustice, and you have no choice but to use your talent and your influence to correct those wrongs,” Hill once said. “As African-American journalists, we often make news--good news--happen for our people.”

After leaving the Courier, Hill was a publicist for the 7-Up Bottling Co. for 32 years. He later founded his own public relations firm, and his accounts included Western Airlines, the Getty family’s Tidewater Oil Co., Hollywood Park Race Track, 20th Century Fox Studios and Walt Disney Studios, Pye said.

He was also a publicist for Martin Luther King Jr., heavyweight champion Joe Louis, singer Nat King Cole and bandleader Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five.

A native of Portland, Ore., Hill received USC’s Outstanding Alumni Award in 1981. He retired in 1986 after 48 years as a journalist and public relations consultant.

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Asked how he planned to spend his retirement, he quipped: “I think I’ll go down to Bradley’s campaign office. I heard Tom needs some help.”

Hill is survived by his wife, Marjorie; twin sons, Herman and Sherman; daughter Herma Bostic, six grandchildren and a great-grandchild. Services will be at 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Angelus Funeral Home, 3875 Crenshaw Blvd.

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