Yvonne Haskins

Yvonne B. Haskins died on Tuesday, 29 September 2026, of metastatic breast cancer at her home in Germantown, Philadelphia. She was 88. The Philadelphia Inquirer published a full obituary on 14 October 2026; the Chestnut Hill Local had reported her death on 7 October.

She is survived by her daughter, Kristin Haskins Simms, a grandson, a great-grandson, a brother and other relatives. A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Saturday, 7 November 2026, at First United Methodist Church of Germantown. Donations were suggested to the American Cancer Society, that church and Salem Baptist Church of Abington.

Yvonne Rozlyn Blakeney was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on 23 February 1938. She was reared in several small towns near Atlanta and spent summers with her maternal grandparents. Her extended family included scholars and civic leaders: her grandfather was among the first Black doctors in Decatur, Georgia, and her grandmother's Hubert kin included college presidents and the first director of the New York Urban League.

Enrolled in school from age three, she graduated as high school valedictorian at 15 and took pre-med classes at Spelman College in Atlanta, making the dean's list. She left Spelman after her sophomore year, married Walter Booker and had sons Russell and Randall. After time in Washington and a divorce, she moved to Philadelphia to join her parents.

On impulse she took the Philadelphia police exam and joined the department in the mid-1960s, becoming one of the first women officers. Contemporaneous accounts and later interviews differ slightly on the year (1964 or 1965). Commissioner Frank Rizzo allowed her a fixed shift so she could attend college full time. She worked in juvenile aid, human relations and criminal justice planning, and as a liaison to the Commission on Human Relations she helped organise the city's early police and community workshops.

She earned a B.A. with honours from Temple University in 1968, then held senior roles including regional director of the Governor's Justice Commission (later the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency), where she oversaw a large project budget and helped fund early work by Women Organized Against Rape, and Philadelphia district director of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole from 1977 to 1987. She was also the first woman head of security at the University of Pennsylvania in 1973.

In 1986 she completed a J.D. at Temple's Beasley School of Law while working full time, practised at Schnader Harrison and Ballard Spahr, then opened Haskins Law Firm with offices in Philadelphia and Camden. She specialised in real estate, zoning, municipal law and community revitalisation, and in 1996 served as interim city attorney for Camden. She wrote often for local outlets on public property sales, housing and preservation.

Haskins married Harold Haskins, a community organiser, in 1969. They lived in West Mount Airy and had a daughter, Kristin. Family and friends called her Peachy for her Georgia roots. She played piano and enjoyed gardening and impressionist art. She lived for years with myeloma and later wrote publicly about a 2024 breast cancer diagnosis, asking neighbours to keep her in the loop of community work. Harold died in 2020; she later lived in Germantown. Her sons Russell and Randall and her former husband Walter Booker died earlier.

Colleagues described Haskins as a giant and a tenacious fighter for Northwest Philadelphia. Trolley Car Park on Germantown Avenue was renamed Yvonne Haskins Park, with a Good Trouble plaque on a bench calling her a friend of Mt. Airy and a defender of righteous causes and green spaces. Garlen Capita of Germantown United said she taught people to be fearless and to push elected officials to serve their constituents. Her daughter said she did not believe in retirement and wanted to stay engaged and fight for justice.

She is remembered as a trailblazer for women in Philadelphia law enforcement and state criminal justice agencies, and as a lawyer and organiser who tied professional skill to neighbourhood advocacy on housing, burial ground preservation and government accountability.