Hicks was a founding member of the Council of Black Gay Men and a journalist for a homosexual publication in Chicago in the 1970s.[1] He also founded a magazine named Diplomat during the same period.[4] In the 1980s, he joined the first Washington, DC, AIDS task team.[1] To combat the spread of HIV in the West Side community, he helped establish the Greater Chicago Committee in the early 1990s.[1]
Hicks was a member of the Chicago HIV Prevention Planning Group and St. Joseph Hospital's HIV Advisory Board.[4] He co-chaired Langston Hughes–Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club and also headed the Black Lesbian and Gay Community Center.[4]