Fueled by discriminatory practices and violent intimidation in his community that threatened his family and friends, Robert "Bob" Hicks developed an unquenchable thirst for justice and equality and helped spark the spirits of people and communities. His involvement in planning rallies, marches, daily demonstrations, and boycotts, organizing armed protection for targets of racially and politically motivated violence, and initiating successful legal challenges helped topple segregation by ending separate but unequal practices in education, employment, law, government, voting rights, healthcare, and housing. As a NAACP member, Treasurer of Prince Hall Masons, President of the Bogalusa chapter of Deacons for Defense and Justice, president of Crown Zellerbach's segregated union, International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers, and the first African American supervisor in the mill's box plant, Hicks remained a staunch advocate for justice for all Americans. On February 1, 1965, after learning of a Ku Klux Klan plan to bomb his home and being told by police that they could not protect his family, Hicks refused the Klan's demand to expel two white civil rights workers he was housing, sent his five children to a safe place, and called for protection as armed Black men stood guard through the night. On February 21, the Jonesboro Deacons for Defense and Justice came to Bogalusa to start a chapter citing the Second Amendment and carrying guns for protection against white aggression, and Hicks took the lead in founding the Bogalusa chapter. The Deacons' confrontation with the Klan created history, started a civil rights movement, empowered a people, and propelled the U.S. government to enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act to neutralize the Klan. The Hicks home became the birth and meeting place for Deacons, foot soldiers, lawyers, civil and human rights advocates, and a safe haven for all, and decisions made there significantly affected the future of the community, Louisiana, and the nation.