The University of Georgia’s Building No. 1514 will be designated S. Ernest Vandiver Hall on Friday, taking the name of the late governor who oversaw admission of the school’s first black students after campaigning for office as a segregationist.

Vandiver famously declared in his successful 1958 gubernatorial campaign that “no, not one” African-American student would enter the state’s white schools. But three years later, when a federal court ordered that Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter be admitted to the university, Vandiver complied.

He then persuaded the legislature to repeal Georgia laws that would have required public schools to close rather than integrate.

Vandiver, who was governor from 1959 until 1963, is one of three former governors, all UGA graduates, being honored with namesake buildings at the university this fall. The others are Joe Frank Harris and Zell Miller.

Vandiver Hall is a six-story apartment-style student residence building in East Campus Village.

Historians contrast Vandiver’s legacy with that of two other contemporary Southern governors, George Wallace of Alabama and Ross Barnett of Mississippi. Wallace physically blocked the doorway to prevent two black students from registering at the University of Alabama. James Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi, virulently opposed by Barnett, sparked riots that left two people dead.

Georgia’s integration “wasn’t always pretty, but it went a lot more smoothly than places like Mississippi and Alabama,” said James Cobb, a UGA professor who specializes in the history of the American South. “I think it’s fitting enough that a building on campus be named for Vandiver. His actions spared the university the kind of stigma that has hung over Ole Miss all these years.”

Vandiver “felt he lost in popularity and support” because of the direction he chose, said his daughter Jane Kidd, chairwoman of Georgia’s Democratic Party. “But he didn’t ever regret the decision he made.”

Her father, she said, “was a man of his time. He did what was right in that time.”

Vandiver Hall is being dedicated at 2 p.m. Friday.

Two other dedications will be held next month.

East Village Commons, which houses a cafeteria, meeting space and offices, will become Joe Frank Harris Commons on Oct. 10. Harris, who was governor from 1983 to 1991, boosted the state’s funding for education by $2 billion and created what is now the Georgia Research Alliance, a not-for-profit network of businesses, universities and state government agencies. He later became a member of the Board of Regents, overseeing the state’s university system and libraries.

The Zell B. Miller Learning Center will be dedicated on Oct. 17. Miller, governor from 1991 to 1999 and later a U.S. Senator, is known for bringing the lottery to Georgia, thus creating a funding stream for HOPE scholarships. More than a million Georgia students have received a total of $4 billion in support for college through the program.

The learning center includes 26 classrooms, 96 small study areas, an electronic library, 500 public-access computers, a reading room and a coffee shop.