Name: Julian Martos

Social Justice Group: War and Violence: How race affects conviction rates in NYC (B)

Date of Fieldwork: January 29, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Robert Gangi, founder of PROP

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:

Today, we met with Robert Gangi, the founder of the Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP). Gangi has been an activist, Public advocate, and community organizer for over 40 years. After working for the Correctional Association for 29 years, he decided to create PROP to end abusive policing techniques that harm many people, including people of color.

While interviewing him, we got to ask many questions about what he does at PROP and how young people care about this issue. One thing that he told us is that since he has been working since the ’60s, he has seen how the political climate has changed and how people fought against Jim Crow laws and the Vietnam War. another thing he noticed during the ’50s is how little activism was happening for young people, which shows how much politicly the United States changed with Nixon being elected and the war on drugs happening, which was a way that Nixon and his party arrested African Americans. The Nixon administration admitted this, which led to a massive prison increase throughout the 70’s and 80’s.

We also got to learn how he got into this career with the District Attorney who worked with the DA office and wanted to change things from the inside. they reached out to Robert and knew about their work, which helped him get into the field.