Project Uplift was a major short-term program of the

Great Society The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The term was first coined during a 1964 commencement address by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the University ...

. It was an experimental

anti-poverty program Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation, is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty. Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics cl ...

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

, New York in the summer of 1965, intended to prevent the recurrence of the riots that hit the community the summer before.

Public works program

Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, more commonly called HARYOU, was an American social activism organization founded by psychologists Kenneth Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark in 1962. Its director was Cyril deGrasse Tyson, father of astrophysicist Ne ...

(HARYOU), Associated Community Teams (ACT), and the

National Urban League The National Urban League, formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan historic civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Am ...

were deputized to organize a network of smaller organizations and employ thousands of young Harlemites in a variety of jobs intended, in the short run, to keep them busy and, in the long run, to give them skills and opportunities to break out of poverty. Young people were employed running a summer camp, planting trees, repairing damaged buildings, and printing a newspaper. The program included a Project Uplift theater program, run by

LeRoi Jones Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous bo ...

, and a dance program. In the short run, Project Uplift was a success, there were no riots in the summer of 1965. However, the longer-range goals of the project were not met. Organizers did not hope to end poverty in one summer, of course, but if the 1965 pilot project had gone well, it might have been repeated, on larger scale, until it had an impact. However, the project was organized with very little lead time: plans were written only weeks before the summer started, and proper research was impossible. Plans to plant 1500 trees in Harlem were scuttled, for example, when managers of the project discovered that one should not plant trees during the summer at all.''Poverty and Politics in Harlem,'' Alphonso Pinkney & Roger Woock, College & University Press Services, Inc., 1970, p.141 Money was not allocated until June 25 even if the program was to start June 28, which made it impossible to buy supplies in advance. Organizing over 100 agencies to work together was difficult, and the large groups involved fought for credit.

References

{{reflist 1965 in New York City Great Society programs Harlem