The Atlanta Urban Debate League was established in 1985 as an after school program focused on providing debate outreach to high school students in the Atlanta public schools. Still in operation today, volunteers work with current students in public middle and high schools in Atlanta, supporting students as they practice reading, writing, speaking and thinking related to a national debate topic on public policy. The story of the league is a story of lofty goals and a commitment to youth empowerment, but also a story about how financial concerns, structural inequality, and resource scarcity shape out-of-school curriculums and structures. Although planning and engaging in debates generated a substantial body of written work, very little survives to help chart the development of the community. In establishing a list of written resources for the study, I identified eight contemporary news articles, two contemporary articles by participants, one news report, and one binder of resources shared by an informant. Beyond the listed resources, the corpus of knowledge about this community exists in the memories of its members. With this in mind, this study relied on oral histories from facilitators and student participants to understand the push and pull between supporting critical literacy and maintaining the community (Yow 2005).