Avery Franklin Brooks (born October 2, 1948) is an American actor, director, singer, and educator. He is best known for his television roles as Benjamin Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as Hawk on Spenser: For Hire and its spinoff A Man Called Hawk, and as Dr. Bob Sweeney in the Academy Award-nominated film American History X. He is a tenured professor in the theater department at Rutgers University where he has taught since 1976.
