Joe R. Hicks is an African-American conservative commentator and community activist. He is currently vice president of Community Advocates Inc., and the former Executive Director of the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission, where he served from 1997 to 2001 under Mayor Richard Riordan.

He has written for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Jewish Journal, and National Review, and frequently appears as a television commentator. He hosted a Saturday evening radio show on LA's KFI; his final show was January 31, 2009. He is currently a regular contributor to Pajamas Media via their PJTV.com online video site, where he hosts a weekly show, "The Hicks File."

In 1996, he debated David Duke at California State University, Northridge over Proposition 209.

Joe Hicks is the Vice President of Community Advocates Inc., a political think tank based in Los Angeles. He currently serves as a member of the California Advisory Panel to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. From 2006 to 2009 he hosted the “The Joe Hicks Show,” a weekly Los Angeles radio talk show on KFI AM 640.

In 1991 Hicks became the Executive Director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (founded by Martin Luther King Jr.) and served until 1997. He was the Executive Director of the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission under then-Mayor Richard J. Riordan from 1997 to 2001.

Hicks served three years as a member of the Board of Governors for the California State Bar, stepping down in 2002.

Hicks, a life-long Los Angeles resident, became an advocate after the Watts riots in the 1960s. He served as Communications Director for the Southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. In the early 1990s, Hicks was Executive Director of the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Up until the 1990s, Hicks views were conventionally liberal. However, by the early-1990s Hicks began a re-examination of these views which resulted in dramatic changes. Today, he describes himself as a political conservative with libertarian leanings.

Hicks was formerly a board member of the anti-death penalty group Death Penalty Focus, but now supports capital punishment. Hicks has spoken out against black on black crime, the "culture of incompetence" at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, and the "black hooligans" protesting the BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant.

Hicks is married with two daughters.