Derrick A. Hicks, 46, co-founder of a Chicago HIV prevention agency that serves minorities, died Monday, April 29, in West Suburban Hospital Medical Center in Oak Park of pneumonia stemming from complications from HIV. Mr. Hicks worked tirelessly to help the underprivileged. He orchestrated food pantries and clothing drives and persuaded barbers to provide free haircuts to poor people seeking jobs, his friends and family said. He had a short fuse and wasn’t above raising his voice to make a point, friends said. “He could be one hell-raiser,” said his godson, Kevin Pleasant. “Especially for what he believed in, especially for rights of racial minorities, sexual minorities and the underprivileged. He championed their causes.” He was born in Chicago and raised by his mother and grandmother. From the age of 10, he enjoyed organizing parties in his back yard, a practice he continued in adulthood. In the 1970s he wrote for a gay newspaper in Chicago and became an original member of the Committee of Black Gay Men. He moved to Washington, D.C., and in the 1980s became a founding member of an AIDS task force there. He returned to Chicago in the early 1990s and co-founded the Greater Chicago Committee, a West Side HIV prevention agency. He was a member of the Chicago HIV Prevention Planning Group. Mr. Hicks is survived by his mother, Ernestine Dowell; and two sisters, Katie Harrison and Alicia Hicks. Visitation will be from 3 to 7 p.m. Thursday in Corbin Colonial Chapel, 5345 W. Madison St., Chicago. Services will be at 10 a.m. Friday in the funeral home.
