BOSTON (AP) – Jack E. Robinson, a former Boston NAACP president and longtime Republican activist, died Saturday. He was 79.

Robinson died of congestive heart failure at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, his son Jack E. Robinson Jr. said.

He served three terms as president of the Boston chapter of the NAACP during the turbulent 1970s, when a federal judge ordered school busing to desegregate the city’s schools.

Robinson was a friend and confidante of former Sen. Edward Brooke, R-Mass., who in 1966 became the first black man elected to the Senate. Robinson also supported the presidential candidacies of Richard Nixon, claiming Nixon helped the black community by directing federal resources to inner cities.

Born in Jackson, Miss., Robinson moved north with his parents and graduated in 1945 from Roxbury Memorial High School, where he won a city scholastic tennis championship. His love of tennis led him to help found the Sportsmen’s Tennis Club in Dorchester, and he spent his final years as the owner of the Martha’s Vineyard Resort & Racquet Club in Oak Bluffs.

Robinson served in the Army during the Korean War. Jack E. Robinson Jr. said he met and became friendly with Martin Luther King Jr. while both were students at Boston University.