History UnderfootAtlanta
  • School
  • Segregation
  • September 27, 1961
  • City of Atlanta
  • Location approximate

Georgia Tech admits Black students (Sept. 1961)

Ford Greene, Ralph Long Jr. and Lawrence Michael Williams enrolled in September 1961. The New Georgia Encyclopedia calls Tech the first institution of higher education in the Deep South to integrate peacefully and without a court order.

See it on the map All Segregation records

The record

President Edwin Harrison announced the decision in May 1961, citing the need to 'forestall the possibility of federal intervention' (NGE). The three students enrolled on September 27, 1961, less than a month after Atlanta's high schools desegregated. That January a federal court had ordered the University of Georgia to admit Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter (NGE).

Today: Georgia Tech's historic campus core.