Central State University
Ohio
1887
As the first president of Central State College after it separated from Wilberforce University in 1947, Dr. Charles H. Wesley chose Central’s colors of maroon and gold to reflect the history of African-American freemen in the New World, who were often called “maroons”. Dr. Wesley chose gold to symbolize the value of knowledge and the spiritual, mental, and economic wealth it can bring to the individual.
The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) probably assigned Central State College a hood lining not long after it became independent of Wilberforce University in 1947. A list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described Central State’s hood lining as scarlet with a gold reversed chevron, which was also how it was described in an IBAC list from 1972. Here the correct colors of maroon and gold have been restored.