with Robert Penn Warren for the book Who Speaks for the Negro?, Wilkins declared, However, his moderate views increasingly brought him into conflict with younger, more militant black activists who saw him as an "Uncle Tom." Wilkins was also a member of Omega Psi Phi, a fraternity with a civil rights focus and one of the intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternities established for African Americans. In 1964, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP. During his tenure, the NAACP played a pivotal role in leading the nation into the Civil Rights Movement and spearheaded the efforts that led to significant civil rights victories, including Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1968, Wilkins also served as chair of the U.S. delegation to the International Conference on Human Rights. After turning 70 in 1971, he faced increased calls to step down as NAACP chief. In 1976, he fell into a dispute with undisclosed board members at the NAACP national convention in Memphis, Tennessee. Although he had intended to retire that year, he decided to postpone it until 1977 because he thought that the pension plan offered to him by the NAACP was inadequate. Board member Emmitt Douglas of Louisiana demanded that Wilkins disclose the offenders and not impugn the board as a whole. Wilkins merely said that the offenders had "vilified" his reputation and questioned his health and integrity. In 1977, at the age of 76, Wilkins finally retired from the NAACP and was succeeded by Benjamin Hooks. Wilkins was honored with the title Director Emeritus of the NAACP in the same year. He died on September 8, 1981, in New York City, from heart problems related to a pacemaker implanted on him in 1979 because of his irregular heartbeat. In 1982, his autobiography, Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins, was published posthumously. Views Wilkins was a staunch liberal and proponent of American values during the Cold War. He denounced suspected and actual communists within the Civil Rights Movement. He had been criticized by some on the left of the movement, such as Daisy Bates, Paul Robeson, W. E. B. Du Bois, Robert F. Williams, and Fred Shuttlesworth, for his cautious approach, suspicion of grassroots organizations, and conciliatory attitude towards white anticommunism. In 1951, J. Edgar Hoover and the US State Department, in collusion with the NAACP and