John Jay Hooker
| John Jay Hooker | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born |
August 24, 1930 Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | January 24, 2016 (aged 85) Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Political party |
Democratic (Before 2004) Independent (2004–2016) |
| Spouse(s) | Tish Fort |
| Children | 3 |
| Alma mater |
University of the South Vanderbilt University |
John Jay Hooker, Jr. (August 24, 1930 – January 24, 2016) was an American attorney, entrepreneur, political gadfly and perennial candidate from Nashville, Tennessee, who was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Tennessee in 1970 and 1998.
John Jay Hooker was born to relative wealth and privilege in one of the Nashville area's more prominent families in 1930. His father, John Jay Hooker, Sr., was one of the Nashville area's best-known and most respected attorneys, as is John Jay's brother. Henry Hooker, who became his law partner in the former firm of Hooker, Hooker, and Willis. Hooker was a direct descendant of William Blount, who signed the Constitution of the United States and who was appointed by President George Washington in 1790 to be the "Governor of all the lands south of the Ohio River". In 1796, Governor Blount was elected the president of the Constitutional Convention of Tennessee.
After finishing high school at Nashville's Montgomery Bell Academy, Hooker attended college at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. He then served two years in the United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps as an investigator. Upon discharge from the service, Hooker attended Vanderbilt University Law School. He graduated and was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1957. He then practiced law with his father in the law firm of Hooker, Keeble, Dodson, and Harris, one of the most prominent law firms in Tennessee. In 1960, Hooker left his father's law firm to start a new law firm and one year later was joined by his brother Henry Hooker, and two years later by William R. Willis, forming the law firm of Hooker, Hooker, and Willis, which eventually became a ten-man law firm. This firm became the general counsel of the Nashville Tennessean and several other businesses by the time Hooker ran for governor in 1966. Struck by the inequalities in the southern society that confronted him at the time, he became identified as a young man with progressive Democratic politics. While practicing law, he also began a series of diverse business investments.
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