Yaffe, Deborah

Scope and Contents Debby Yaffe was one of the youngest members of the Student Help Project who volunteered to go to Prince Edward County, Virginia, in the summer of 1963 to tutor local Black children who were denied a public education for four years in massive resistance to the desegregation of schools. Yaffe contributes her memories of organizing and preparing for the summer initiative. In Prince Edward County, Yaffe served as the librarian of the Queens College group, rather than as a tutor, which she had to...

Abstract As a Queens College student, Debby Yaffe volunteered with the Student Help Project, an initiative that provided free tutoring services to underserved children. During the summer of 1963, sixteen members of the project, including Yaffe, travelled to Prince Edward County, Virginia, to provide instruction to African American children. These children had been denied formal public education since 1959, when the county defunded and closed its schools rather than comply with federally-ordered...