Beda-Etta College

Last updated

Beda-Etta College
Location
Macon, Georgia

United States
Information
TypeBusiness College
Established1921 (1921)
FounderMinnie Lee Smith
Closed1955 (1955)

The Beda-Etta College, also known as Beda-Etta Business College, [1] was a private business-focused junior college and commercial high school in the Pleasant Hill neighborhood of Macon, Georgia active from 1921 to 1955. [1] [2] [3]

History

The Beda-Etta College was founded and operated by Minnie Lee Smith, a public school teacher, [1] who named it for her two deceased sisters, [4] and who paid for it with her own money. [5] [6] The school mainly taught courses to students of color related to business and commerce before offering a wider range of subjects. [5] [7] [8] The school was said to be the first business school in Georgia, and its courses ("typing, shorthand, bookkeeping, and banking") were taken by "many of Macon's future black leaders". [1]

Smith died in 1956 and is buried at Linwood Cemetery in Macon. [9] The Tubman African American Museum has the school's 1923 cornerstone.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Grant, Donald Lee (2001). Grant, Jonathan (ed.). The Way it was in the South: The Black Experience in Georgia. University of Georgia Press. p. 230. ISBN   9780820323299.
  2. ↑ The Macon Guide and Ocmulgee National Monument Project. Georgia Writers' Program. J. W. Burke Company. 1939. p. 35. Beda Etta College, a junior college and commercial high school, was founded by Minnie L. Smith in 1920{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. ↑ Brown, Titus (2002). Faithful, Firm, and True: African American Education in the South. Mercer University Press. p. 107. ISBN   978-0-86554-777-3.
  4. ↑ Herring, Jeanne (February 6, 2000). Macon, Georgia. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN   9780738506005.
  5. 1 2 "Macon". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
  6. ↑ "Beda-Etta College at Memorial Church". The Macon News. April 6, 1930. p. 9. Retrieved January 11, 2023.
  7. ↑ The WPA Guide to Georgia: The Peach State Author Federal Writers' Project. Trinity University Press. 2013. p. 202. ISBN   9781595342096.
  8. ↑ Maurer, Tracy (2001). Macon celebrates the millennium. Community Communications, Inc. p. 54. ISBN   978-1-58192-034-5 . Retrieved February 12, 2022.
  9. ↑ "Linwood Cemetery Macon Georgia". linwoodmacon.com.
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