Prince Edward County (Va.)

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...

Scope and Contents Jean Konzal talks about her early life in growing up in Pomonok Queens - her parents were left leaning working class immigrants from Ukraine, and her aunt was in the communist party. She also discusses her experience as a Queens College student and her involvement with the Queens College house plans, which were social organizations at the school.Jean Konzal was 19 when she saw an ad in the QC student paper “The Signal” about the Student Help Project, and began tutoring kids in...

Scope and Contents June Tauber Golden is a graduate of Queens College Class of 1963 and in this interview, she recalls her involvement in both the Jamaica and Virginia Student Help Projects as a tutor. The Student Help Project was a student-led initiative to tutor young Black elementary school students in Jamaica, Queens. The Jamaica initiative of the Student Help Project engaged approximately 500 Queens College students who volunteered to tutor more than one thousand educationally disadvantaged and...

Scope and Contents Leonard Hausman shares his experience fundraising, organizing, and participating in the Virginia Student Help Project of Queens College during the summer of 1963. The Virginia Student Help Project was a six-week long educational effort where Queens College students went to Prince Edward County, Virginia where public schools were closed for five years in massive resistance to federally mandated integration. Hausman discusses his role as a project lead and tutor in the Virginia initiative, as...

Scope and Contents Leslie Francis Griffin, Jr., colloquially known as “Skip,” is the son of Reverend L. Francis Griffin, who coordinated with Dr. Rachel Weddington to have Queens College students tutor children in Prince Edward County during the summer of 1963 as part of the Student Help Project. The public schools of Prince Edward County were closed for five years starting in 1959 in massive resistance to integration, denying many of the local young black students access to education, including Skip Griffin...

Scope and Contents In this interview, alumni Mike Wenger, Stan Shaw, and Mark Levy discuss their impressions of life at Queens College in the early 1960s. The three discuss the culture of campus, the impact of the Virginia Student Help Project in 1963, and subsequent student activist movements on campus and in society at large. Wenger, Shaw, and Levy recall student-driven civil rights activities such as the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, Freedom Week, and Freedom Fast initiatives. Also in the conversation,...

Scope and Contents Rosalind Andrews (then Rosalind Silverman) grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens and was a student at Queens College between 1960 and 1965. While at Queens College, Andrews spent the summer of 1963 in Prince Edward County, Virginia among a cohort of selected students who helped tutor and prepare local students for the reopening of public schools that fall, which were closed since 1959 in massive resistance to integration. Andrews describes a typical day in Farmville as a tutor, the failed media...

Scope and Contents Stan Shaw and Michael Wenger discuss their experience initiating, coordinating, and participating in the Virginia Student Help Project and the Jamaica Student Help Project of Queens College in the early to mid-1960s. The Virginia Student Help Project was an intensive education effort during the summer of 1963 in Prince Edward County, Virginia where public schools were closed for five years in massive resistance to integration. The Jamaica Student Help Project took place closer to home....