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.