Oral history interview with Deborah "Debbie" Kahn Rubin
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Deborah 'Debbie' Kahn Rubin (1942 - ) attended Woman's College of the University of North Carolina from 1960 to 1962 (the institution is now known as The University of North Carolina at Greensboro). She graduated from George Washington University in Washington, DC and holds master's degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Rubin talks about growing up in Columbia, South Carolina; her father serving on a secret mayor's committee to integrate the local stores in the late 1950s; discussing anti-Semitism at home; and choosing to attend Woman's College. She recalls asking the college administration permission to move to the African American section of Coit Residence Hall since there were empty rooms; making friends with black students Diane Oliver (Class of 1964) and Lily Wiley (Class of 1962); having Diane Oliver visit her home in Columbia; and starting a petition to boycott the segregated businesses on Tate Street and being told by the college administration to withdraw the petition. Rubin discusses her professors; dormitory rules and regulations; practice teaching at John Bartram High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and being the first white person to teach at the all-black Maggie Walker High School in Richmond, Virginia in 1966. She also talks about the paper she wrote on the integration of Woman's College and her volunteer work on the boards at Wake Forest University and the Reynolda House.