Women's Research and Resource Center. In 1958, the college received accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
=== Civil rights involvement ===
Going into the 1960s, the Spelman College students became involved in civil rights actions in Atlanta. In 1962, the first Spelman students were arrested for participating in sit-ins in the Atlanta community. Noted American historian Howard Zinn was a professor of history at Spelman during this era, and served as an adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chapter at the college. Zinn mentored many of Spelman's students fighting for civil rights at the time, including Alice Walker and Marian Wright Edelman Zinn was dismissed from the college in 1963 for supporting Spelman students in their efforts to fight segregation; at the time, Spelman was focused on turning out "refined young ladies." Edelman herself writes that Spelman had a reputation as "a tea-pouring, very strict school designed to turn Black girls into refined ladies …
