After college, Hall served as Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand, teaching English in 1966 and 1967, an experience that contributed to his strong interest in world hunger issues. He also worked in the real estate business.[2]
Hall was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978, to succeed 12-year incumbent Charles W. Whalen Jr., a moderate Republican. He won election with 54 percent of the vote, but would never face another contest anywhere near that close. He would be reelected 11 more times, never dropping below 57 percent of the vote. As a measure of how popular he was in the Dayton area, he was unopposed for reelection in 1984 even as Ronald Reagan carried the district in a landslide. He was unopposed again in 1990, and faced no major-party opposition in 1982 and 2000.
During his tenure in Congress, Hall concentrated on seeking to alleviate world hunger. He made frequent trips to more than 100 countries such as Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Sudan, and North Korea where hunger was widespread. He was chairman of the Select Committee on Hunger from 1989 to 1993. When the committee was abolished, Hall fasted for 22 days in protest.[3] He was founder of the Congressional Friends of Human Rights Monitors and the Congressional Hunger Center. Hall served terms on the foreign affairs and small business committees before being appointed to the House Rules Committee in 1981.
Twice during his tenure as U.S. representative, Hall introduced legislation that would have apologized for slavery in the United States.[4]
With Tom Price, Hall wrote Changing the Face of Hunger: One Man's Story of How Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, and People of Faith Are Joining Forces to Help the Hungry, the Poor, and the Oppressed (2007).
In March 2007, Hall announced he was committed to fostering a Middle East peace initiative, by working with the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress and religious leaders of the Holy Land, principally among Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Middle East. Under a $1 million grant from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice via the U.S. Agency for International Development, to be applied to both economics and faith-based efforts, Hall was to work with religious leaders to help prepare the way for peace in the Middle East. Hall received no salary for his work.[5]
He serves as executive director emeritus of The Alliance to End Hunger. Hall also serves on the Board of Advisors of Opportunity International, a charity that seeks to end poverty through microcredit lending to entrepreneurs.
Hall remains active fighting hunger in his hometown of Dayton.[6] In 2015, he created the Hall Hunger Initiative, a Dayton-based nonprofit working to “create a just and equitable food system.[7]"He also served as the Capital Chair for the Gem City Market, a co-op grocery store, and lead a successful effort to raise $5 million.[8]
Recognition
Ambassador Hall was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for 1998, 1999 and 2001 for his humanitarian and hunger-related work. For his hunger legislation and for his proposal for a Humanitarian Summit in the Horn of Africa, Ambassador Hall and the Hunger Committee received the 1992 Silver World Food Day Medal from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Ambassador Hall is a recipient of the United States Committee for UNICEF 1995 Children's Legislative Advocate Award, U.S. AID Presidential End Hunger Award, 1992 Oxfam America Partners Award, Bread for the World Distinguished Service Against Hunger Award, and NCAA Silver Anniversary Award. He received honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Asbury College, Antioch College and Eastern College and a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Loyola College in Baltimore.[9]
Personal life
Hall and his wife, Janet Sue Dick, were married in 1973. They had two children together, Jyl Hall and Matthew Hall. Matthew died in 1996, at age 15, of leukemia.[10]
