Dream of Tougaloo Officials is for Repairs of Historic Ballard Hall

Simeon Gates/Mississippi Today

For Alexis Dean, age 21, attending Tougaloo College is literally a dream come true.

The idea came to her in a dream. The dream worked out, and she’s now a senior music education major. There’s a lot of hands-on instruction, the teachers are supportive and she loves her classes, though the building where her classes are located might be considered nightmarish by some.

Ballard Hall is the home of Tougaloo’s music department and one of the oldest buildings on campus, but it’s in need of renovations after over a century of use.

“People are scared of this building,” Dean said. “They call it the haunted house because of how it looks on the outside.”

Tougaloo College is working to secure funding to save the historic Ballard Hall from disrepair.

C. Erskine Brown is the assistant vice president of facilities and real property management at Tougaloo. Brown explained that Tougaloo is preparing “a comprehensive preservation and rehabilitation effort” that is in line with preservation guidelines from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the National Park Service.

“Preserving this building is not simply a construction project,” Brown said. “It represents the safeguarding of Tougaloo’s legacy, identity and cultural heritage for generations to come.”

The building needs major repairs, including roof replacement, modernizing the HVAC system and interior rehabilitation. Efforts to secure funding for an engineer to survey the building for soundproofing and acoustic treatment are also ongoing.

Dr. Jessie Primer III, chair of Tougaloo’s music department, said the soundproofing and acoustic treatment is part of an effort to gain accreditation from the National Association of Schools of Music. This accreditation would bring the department up to national standards and improve recruitment.

Primer said the overall renovations would improve student morale.

“When alumni come back to visit on campus, they’re surprised to see that this old facility is still standing,” said Primer.

Tony Bounds, Tougaloo’s institutional historian, explained that the building will become unusable without renovations, and that Toougaloo doesn’t have a place to relocate the music department. The music technology and audio principal labs have already been relocated to the Zenobia Coleman Library.

Bounds believes Ballard Hall is “a hidden gem,” which is why he nominated it to Mississippi Heritage Trust’s list of the “10 Most Endangered Historic Places in Mississippi.” The list raises awareness about places, buildings and things that may be lost to demolition, disrepair and other forces.

“You don’t find too many structures that remain that were actually funded directly by abolitionists, and Ballard Hall is a product of that era in American history,” Bounds said.

“I think that’s very important because it’s material culture. It’s something that we can actually still handle and see and study and delve into physically.”

Ballard Hall was constructed in 1886, mostly by students at the American Missionary Association, which established Tougaloo. It’s named after philanthropist and businessman Stephen Ballard, who contributed money to Black schools throughout the South. His $5,0000 donation was used to construct three buildings, and Ballard Hall is the only one that remains standing.

The 139 year-old building has been repurposed multiple times. It was a preparatory school, the home of Mississippi’s first accredited all-Black high school. It’s been the home of Tougaloo’s music department since 1957.

One of the notable moments from the history of Tougaloo’s music department and Ballard Hall occurred on April 4, 1968. The College’s choir and famed pianist and orchestra leader Duke Ellington had to stop their performance at Carnegie Hall in New York for Ellington and then-Tougaloo President George A. Owens to announce the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

In 1998, Ballard Hall and the rest of the Tougaloo College Historic District joined the National Register of Historic Places.

Brown explained the challenges faced getting funding: the work the building needs is expensive; the college has limited resources; state and federal preservation grants are very competitive; and there are few funding streams for historically Black colleges and universities for historic preservation.

The total renovation project is estimated to cost a little over $1 million, though the design team hasn’t provided a full schedule of costs yet. Once funding is secured, construction would take an estimated 12 to 18 months.

Bounds says Tougaloo is currently in talks with private funding entities that were recommended to the college by the Mississippi Heritage Trust.