The Real Great Society (RGS) was a Puerto Rican youth collective created by activists Angelo Gonzalez and Carlos ‘Chino’ García on New York City's Lower East Side in 1964. Its name was a reference to then-President Lyndon B Johnson’s Great Society. Its goal was to help residents of the poverty-stricken neighborhoods of New York City attain bottom-up self-sufficiency. In June 1967, RGS members created the University of the Streets, which one member described as an organization that would have "young people from the neighborhood develop a curriculum which is relevant to them, their lives, their experience." The school, housed in a building on the corner of Seventh Street and Avenue A, lasted for over 30 years. Chino Garcia and several other members of the Real Great Society went on to form CHARAS/El Bohio, considered a successor organization to RGS in 1979.
References
- Schrader, Timo (2018). "Education as a Human Right: The Real Great Society and a Pedagogy of Activism". Journal for the Study of Radicalism. 12 (1): 123–157 – via jstor.
- Bagchee, Nandini (2018). Counter Institution: Activist Estates of the Lower East Side. Fordham University Press. ISBN 9780823279265.
- Kihss, Peter (February 27, 1968). "Ex-Gang Leaders Obtain U.S. Funds". New York Times. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
- Resistance : a radical political and social history of the Lower East Side. Clayton Patterson, Joe Flood, Alan Moore (Seven stories press 1st ed.). New York: Seven Stories Press. 2007. pp. 23–25. ISBN 978-1-58322-745-9. OCLC 76794738.
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: CS1 maint: others (link) - Resistance : a radical political and social history of the Lower East Side. Clayton Patterson, Joe Flood, Alan Moore (Seven stories press 1st ed.). New York: Seven Stories Press. 2007. pp. 21–36. ISBN 978-1-58322-745-9. OCLC 76794738.
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Further reading
- Aponte‐Parés, Luis (December 1998). "Lessons from El Barrio—the East Harlem Real Great Society/Urban Planning Studio: A Puerto Rican Chapter in the Fight for Urban Self‐Determination". New Political Science. 20 (4): 399–420. doi:10.1080/07393149808429838. ISSN 0739-3148.
- Harrington, Michael (July 25, 1971). "American Kids, American Poverty, American Unity, American Advice". The New York Times.
- Poston, Richard W (1971). The Gang and the Establishment. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-013401-3. OCLC 152786.
- "Sublimation Is the Name of a Shop and the Reason Behind It". The New York Times. November 17, 1970.
- Taylor, Angela (January 23, 1970). "Where the Real Beautiful Meet the Real Great". The New York Times.
- Vaughan, Roger (September 15, 1967). "The Real Great Society". Life. pp. 76–91.