Walter F. Anderson Award
Breaking Ethnic Barriers
2019 Recipient: LaShann DeArcy Hall ’92
The Honorable LaShann DeArcy Hall ’92 is a US District Judge for the Eastern District of New York. After receiving her BA from Antioch, she waitressed in New York and Washington, taught conversational English in Korea, and served in the US Air Force before entering Howard University School of Law, where she graduated in 2000.
Judge DeArcy Hall is a member of the American and New York City bar associations. She worked at several prestigious law firms and served as Commissioner on the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission and on the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics.
Judge DeArcy Hall’s pro bono efforts include winning a reversal of her client’s death sentence in Alabama and negotiating a favorable settlement on behalf of an inmate seeking redress of First Amendment violations. She works to introduce minority youth to the law through Sponsors for Education Opportunity, Constitutional Works, and the High School of Law and Justice, and was honored by the New York City Bar Association for her work in promoting diversity in the legal profession.
PREVIOUS RECIPIENTS
| 2010 | Edythe Bagley ’47 Edythe was one of Antioch’s first African-American students in modern times to be integrated fully into the curriculum. She taught high school English, later earning her master’s degree in English from Columbia University, then taught and directed plays at Elizabeth State College, North Carolina A&T University, and Norfolk State University. She later earned a Masters in Fine Arts, a terminal degree in Theater, from Boston University, becoming, in 1965, the first African-American woman to do so. She was a key facilitator in the Civil Rights Movement that began to transform the South. William David Chappelle III ’80 Bill worked in the Cooperative Education and Dean of Students departments starting in 1973, and taught as an adjunct instructor of singing. He helped organize H.U.M.A.N. (Help Us Make A Nation) in the 1970s with his close friend, social activist Jim Dunn, to advocate community empowerment and social activism. He helped found the African American Cross-Cultural Works (AACW). Jim Dunn Jim came to Antioch to teach in the Social Work Department, emphasizing experiential learning and community organizing. His gift of empowerment brought people together through workshops and conferences, such as “Students of the ‘60s meet with Students of the ‘70s to discuss the ‘80s,” where key individuals of the Civil Rights Movement attended and participated. He founded, with Bill Chappelle, H.U.M.A.N. (Help Us Make A Nation ) an organization which evolved into The People’s Institute, the foremost anti-racism training and organizing institution in the nation. |
| 2011 | Sylvia Cheryl Jones Turner ’67 Santa Ana College Dean of Fine and Performing Arts, award-winning choreographer and educator active in concert dance, professional theater, and arts organizations. |
| 2012 | Victor Garcia Victor is president of the Board of Del Pueblo in Southwest Ohio, a nonprofit social service organization dedicated to community building and advocacy for Spanish speakers in the region. Victor is Antioch College professor emeritus of foreign civilizations and languages, and taught Spanish and Latin American literature and history for 25 years. |
| 2013 | David C. Farrar ’66 In David Farrar’s career as an opera stage director, he has broken many barriers. He is not only the first African-American to direct the New York City Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the Royal Opera, Covant Garden, the Opera del Teatro Municipal, Santiago, Chile, and the Opera Theatre at Oberlin, but was the first African-American to stage Gershwin’s complete Porgy and Bess in the United States. He was honored at the National Opera Association conference in Boston for his historic role as an African-American opera stage director and received the 1995 Distinguished Director Award. |
| 2014 | Chas Bennett Brack ’83 Throughout Chas’s career, he has been actively involved with human rights organizations such as Men of All Colors Together NY and New York City Commission on Human Rights. Brack now works at Third World Newsreel, while distributing his highly acclaimed directorial debut, Dreams Deferred: The Sakia Gunn Film Project. The film won Best at NewFest 2008. He is the recipient of the 2012 Black Gay Research Group Founder’s Spirit and Soul Awards for Outstanding Contributions in Service to the Black Gay Community. |
| 2016
2017 2018 |
Ted Bunch ’83 Ted is an educator, activist, and lecturer working to end all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls. He is a leading voice on male socialization, the intersection of masculinity and violence against women, and healthy, respectful manhood. Ted is an adviser to the United Nations, the White House, National Football League, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and Major League Baseball, providing policy consultation and facilitating violence prevention and healthy manhood training www.acalltomen.org Larry Rubin ’65 Marty Rosenbluth ’99 |
Originally published on the Antioch College alumni site (AlmaBase platform). View archived version.