William S. Hall
*William S. Hall was born on this date in 1934. He was a Black psychologist, author, and educator.
William Sterling Hall was born in Scott, Arkansas (Lonoke County) to Joseph William Hall and Mattie (Brock) Hall. In 1951, he graduated from Scipio A. Jones High School in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Hall earned a bachelor's degree from Roosevelt University in Chicago in 1957. In 1968, he received a doctoral degree in psychology from the University of Chicago.
Dr. Hall continued his education in psychology and became a post-doctoral fellow, served as a visiting scholar, and held several professional faculty positions. Most notable were Vassar College, Princeton University, Rockefeller University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, New York University, and the University of Maryland, College Park.
Dr. Hall published in peer-reviewed journals widely in language and cognitive development, developmental neuroscience, and neuroanatomy and co-authored three books. Dr. Hall was interviewed by Mr. Cary Crawford, President of the AABPP, and Dr. Rachel Tennial, the first African American faculty member in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a faculty member at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
He has published extensively on language and cognitive development in such journals as Developmental Psychology, Human Development, Discourse Processes, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, and Language and Society. He is the co-author of three books and three special issues of journals. He was a faithful member of the Episcopal Church. He served as head usher at St. Thomas in Church (New York City) and was a member of Church of St. Paul, K Street, Washington, D.C..
In recent years, he attended Christ Episcopal Church (Little Rock, Arkansas), where he was well-beloved. He became a member of the Order of St. John 2004 in an investiture at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Marquis Who's Who, 2007, listed him as a noteworthy psychology educator. The APA/NIGMS Travel Award was named for him in 2007. William S. Hall died in 2019.
