For Ronald L. Yancey, the challenge of Georgia Tech wasn't just the rigorous curriculum or the long hours studying but the empty circle of chairs that usually surrounded him in class — literally and metaphorically. Not by choice, he performed his lab work alone and completed tests in ink to preserve and protect his answers. He studied at the Tech library between classes but at night preferred the security of the library at the Atlanta University Center.

As the first black student to graduate from Georgia Tech, where he received an electrical engineering degree in 1965, Yancey set a courageous example for all minority students who would follow him. It wasn't easy, but he harbors no regrets or bitterness.

After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School in 1960 with a total of 50 A's and 10 B's, Yancey mailed applications to Georgia Tech, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Morehouse College. He received no response from Tech and, deciding to stay close to home, accepted Morehouse's admission offer. He chose a dual major of math and physics as preparatory for the engineering degree he was determined to earn.

Toward the end of his freshman year, Yancey applied to Georgia Tech once again. This time he received a response — a rejection letter — and he made plans to return to Morehouse in the fall.

During his sophomore year at Morehouse, Yancey became active in the campaign to desegregate lunch counters and facilities in downtown Atlanta.

The group, headquartered at the Atlanta University Center, was called the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights, Yancey recalled. Led by local civil rights leaders such as Lonnie King and the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, its members picketed downtown businesses and sat at "whites-only" lunch counters.

"We would go from one lunch counter to another," he said. "When we'd walk in, they would shut it down."

In March 1962, Yancey applied once again to Georgia Tech, asking for reconsideration of his application from the year before. He was admitted as a transfer student for the upcoming fall semester.

In the meantime, Tech had been integrated seven months earlier when Ford Greene, Ralph Long Jr. and Lawrence Williams were admitted as entering freshmen. President Edwin Harrison, recognizing the inevitability of integration, was determined to accomplish the change without the violence by white students and the attendant publicity that had marked integration at the University of Georgia.

None of those first three black students would graduate, however.

A week before Yancey was to begin classes at Tech, he received a phone call from Dean of Students Jim Dull asking him to drop by campus for a candid talk.

"He gave me a tour of the campus," Yancey recalled. "He gave me a general feel for what to expect when I got on campus. He told me that he would act on my behalf and said, 'I will do whatever I can to help you.'"

Looking back, Yancey credits great parents and his family's strong Christian background with providing the focus, support and perspective he needed to persevere at Georgia Tech. But Yancey admits there was a time when he was almost ready to quit. It came during his junior year, he said. He had missed two homework assignments in one of his classes, and the pressure — both academic and social — was forcing Yancey to reevaluate his choices.

"Why am I doing this? Why am I going through all of this?" he recalled asking himself. As he was leaving the class, the professor invited him into his office for a short talk.

Yancey remembers the gist of the lecture: "'Do you feel the enormity of what you're doing here? You know there are a lot of people that are counting on you. There are people here on campus who support you, and there are people on campus who want to see you succeed, whether you know it or not.

"'You're about to let them down if you don't really get serious and start pressing this — no matter what it takes to finish".

"That," Yancey smiled, "was the biggest lift I got."