"E.R.A.P. and How It Grew," by Richie Rothstein

"E.R.A.P. and How It Grew," by Richie Rothstein

New Left and Anti-Poverty Movement

This SDS pamphlet details the history and aims of its Economic Research and Action Project (E.R.A.P.), a program that tried to organize the urban white unemployed youths in several northern cities during the mid-1960s. ERAP got started in Chicago with the help of a $5000 grant from the United Auto Workers. Though this "into the ghetto" move was a practical failure for the organization, it drew many young idealists to SDS and provided critical early organizing experience. As the War in Vietnam accelerated, it overtook ERAP activism within SDS.

published by New England Free Press

Roz Payne

Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

1967

pamphlet

paper