Tracie D. Hall

Librarian Tracie D. Hall was born on November 17, 1968 in Los Angeles, California to Betty Jean Scott and George Bernard Hall. Hall received her B.A. degree in law and society and her B.A. degree in African American Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1991, her M.A. degree in international relations and affairs from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and her M.L.I.S. degree from the University of Washington Information School in Seattle in 2000. Hall also attended the University of Nairobi in Kenya and the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

After graduating from Yale University, Hall returned to California and served at the Ocean Park Community Center. Hall also worked as a youth services coordinator at the Seattle Public Library and as a community librarian at the Hartford Public Library in Connecticut. Hall became the director of American Library Association’s Office of Diversity in Chicago, Illinois in 2003. In 2006, Hall worked as an assistant dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois. That same year, she also started her own consulting firm called The Goodseed Group. She then joined the Boeing Company’s Global Corporate Citizenship Division as a strategy integration specialist in 2008 and was promoted to the position of Chicago community investor in 2011. In 2012, Hall joined the Queens Library in Queens, New York as vice president of strategy and organizational development. She then moved to the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events as the deputy commissioner of arts and creative industries in 2014. Then, in 2016, she was hired as the director of the Culture Program at the Joyce Foundation. In 2020, Hall was hired by the American Library Association as its first African American female executive director. Hall returned to her alma mater, the University of Washington Information School, as a distinguished professor of practice in 2024.

Hall has served on numerous boards including the Chicago Cultural Advisory Council, the American Academy of Poets, College Unbound, the Court Theatre in Chicago, and the Crossroads Fund.

During her career, Hall has received numerous awards and honors including two Cave Canem fellowships in 1999 and 2000, the Mover and Shaker Award from the Library Journal in 2004, the Rising Star Award from Queens Metropolitan Hospitality in 2013, the Literarian Award from the National Book Foundation in 2022, a feature on the TIME Magazine “100 Most Influential People of 2023 list, a feature on Forbes Magazine’s “50 Over 50” list in 2023, the Public Humanities Beacon Award from the State of Illinois in 2023, and the Medal of Free Speech from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Institute in 2023.

Tracie D. Hall was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 1, 2023.