Galloway Hall

Side A: At the turn of the twentieth century, increased enrollment in the Combined Normal and Industrial Department at Wilberforce University (which later became Central State University) spurred construction of new teaching and dormitory facilities. Galloway Hall, which included an auditorium and a tower with chimes and a clock, was completed in 1906. Many famous personalities performed in Galloway Hall’s auditorium, including the renown opera singer Leontyne Price; Robert McFerrin, the first African American male lead with the New York Metropolitan Opera; actors Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis; comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory; and composer and conductor Duke Ellington. Noted authors and intellectuals addressed audiences there, including historian John Hope Franklin; writer, poet, actor, and playwright Maya Angelou; Lerone Bennett, author, historian, and editor of EBONY Magazine; and writer and essayist James Baldwin. (continued on other side) Side B: (continued from other side) Other notable people who spoke to audiences in the Galloway Hall auditorium include prominent figures in the Civil Rights Movement such as Thurgood Marshall, then senior legal counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and later Supreme Court Justice; Daisy Bates, journalist, president of the NAACP, and “advisor” to the “Little Rock Nine,” and A. Phillip Randolph, International President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Galloway Hall was named for Dr. William Galloway, who served as president of the Combined Normal and Industrial Department’s Board of Trustees. In 1974, only the tower remained of Galloway Hall when the famed Xenia tornado cut a wide swath through Greene County and destroyed the building.