Three Black women fought to desegregate Georgia State. Six decades later, the school honors them

More than a third of the 34,000 students enrolled at Georgia State University today are African American.

Six decades ago, that figure was zero.

The catalyst for that change came in 1959 when the NAACP won a federal lawsuit forcing Georgia State College of Business Administration, as GSU was known then, to admit Myra Payne Elliot, Barbara Pace Hunt and Iris Mae Welch–three African American women.