Boeing gift to aid Allen University’s renovation of historic Chappelle Auditorium

The renovation of Allen University’s historic Chappelle Auditorium got a significant boost Tuesday with a $250,000 gift from the aerospace giant Boeing.

Executives from the company presented the community investment grant to Allen’s president, Lady June Cole, at the historically black private university.

“Today the long histories of Allen University and Boeing intersect, deepening our roots in South Carolina,” said Boeing Commercial Airplanes president and CEO Ray Conner. “We recognize the importance of Allen University to the history of all South Carolinians and we are proud to be associated with Chappelle Auditorium, which has always been a special place for assembly, the arts, and positive engagement, and has made this state and this country a better place for all.”

The 700-seat auditorium attached to Chappelle Hall was designed by John Anderson Langford, known as the “dean of black architects,” and is part of the Allen University Historic District.

The auditorium was named in honor of Bishop William D. Chappelle, an Allen president, and is one of 20 historically black college structures marked for preservation by the Interior Department. The school received a $1 million federal stimulus grant in 2009 toward the renovation.

The timetable for completion of Chappelle is set for late 2015, but Cole said Monday at the school’s media day that she expected it could be spring 2016 before it opens for public events. She said the school already is fielding requests about possibly staging events in Chappelle, which anchors the corner of Harden and Taylor streets.

During the Jim Crow era, the hall served as a gathering place for African-Americans who rallied to overturn school segregation in the 1940s and 1950s. It provided a stage for artists Leontyne Price, Brooks Benton and Langston Hughes, among others, and served as a meeting place for leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the denomination that founded the school.

Other notables to make appearances at Chappelle include Mary McLeod Bethune, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali.

This story was originally published April 14, 2015 at 11:45 AM with the headline "Boeing gift to aid Allen University’s renovation of historic Chappelle Auditorium."