[1] Since the 1960s, Bob Hall has worked with grassroots groups across the Southern United States as an organizer, researcher, investigative reporter, coalition leader and nonprofit executive director.
[2] He received a MacArthur Foundation “genius award” for using strategic research to help miners, textile workers, poultry growers, utility customers and others “negotiate with corporations.” He has also published books and articles on contemporary Southern politics and culture.
Through a combination of research, organizing, and lobbying, Democracy NC-led coalitions won major campaign finance and ethics reforms, including the nation's first full public-financing program for judicial elections.
He became involved in the Southern Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and began his career in nonprofit social change as an organizer with the national church-sponsored Mobile Resource Team in 1968.
[1][9] He served on the founding boards of the Fund for Southern Communities, National Institute on Money in Politics, NC Coastal Federation, Southerners for Economic Justice, North Carolinians Against Racist & Religious Violence, and NC Voters for Clean Elections; and he has provided expert testimony in court cases and consulted with officials in a dozen states on voting rights.