On February 13, 2019, Justice L. Priscilla Hall (ret.), former Associate Justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department, was presented with the Hon. William C. Thompson, Sr. Award at a ceremony held at the courthouse, in appreciation of the life of Hon. William C. Thompson, Sr., who passed away on December 24, 2018.
The awards ceremony, sponsored by Kings County Courts Black History Month Committee, The Brooklyn Bar Association and The Judicial Friends Association, and hosted by Associate Justice Sylvia Hinds-Radix, was one of many celebrations across the courts in Brooklyn in honor of Black History month and this year’s theme of the Great Migration, referring to the relocation of millions of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North between 1916 and 1970.
The distinguished award recognizes someone who embodies the legacy of Hon. William C. Thompson, Sr., who was a New York State Supreme Court Judge, Administrative Judge and the first black Associate Justice appointed to the Appellate Division, Second Department. Justice Hall’s acceptance speech was a scholarly piece on the history of black migration and reflections on her personal migration experience in the late 1950’s from Texas to Chicago, where hundreds of thousands of African Americans moved during the Great Migration, transforming that city’s cultural landscape. Among the speakers at the program were Hon. David Dinkins, Mayor of New York City from 1990 to 1993, and the only African American to date to hold that office, and Hon. Letitia James, the first African American and the first woman elected to the office of Attorney General of New York.
The inaugural award was presented to Justice Hall by the children of the late Hon. William C. Thompson, Sr., Hon. William C. Thompson, Jr. and Gail Thompson-Lake.
Back row: Associate Justice William Mastro, Presiding Justice Alan D. Scheinkman, Associate Justice Reinaldo Rivera, Associate Justice Ruth Balkin
Middle row: Associate Justice Leonard Austin, Associate Justice Cheryl Chambers, Associate Justice John Leventhal
Front row: Justice Deborah Dowling, Gail Thompson-Lake, Retired Associate Justice L. Priscilla Hall, Hon. William Thompson, Jr., Associate Justice Sylvia Hinds-Radix, Leah Richardson
From L-R: Hon. David Dinkins, Hon. Letitia James, Retired Associate Justice Plummer Lott, Associate Justice Sylvia Hinds-Radix
Celebrating the life and legacy of Hon. William C. Thompson, Sr.