Denise Oliver-Vélez, Pioneering Young Lord & Black Panther, Dies at 78

AMY GOODMAN: Denise Oliver-Vélez, longtime activist, organizer and educator, has died at the age of 78. She was a central figure in the civil rights movements of the ’60s and ’70s, was the first woman elected to the Young Lords Central Committee, a radical Puerto Rican civil and human rights organization. She was also a member of the Black Panther Party and later became the first Black female program director in public radio and taught at SUNY New Paltz. This is Denise Oliver-Vélez describing the legacy of the Young Lords during a 2019 appearance on Democracy Now!

DENISE OLIVER–VELEZ: I think that what is so revolutionary about the Young Lords was we created a bridge. We broke down a lot of barriers between groups that were dealing with their individual communities. And that also has a lot to do with, when you talk about Spanish Harlem, El Barrio, you had about a third of the population in El Barrio was African American. And you also had marriages between Black Americans and Puerto Ricans, so we had people in the Lords who identified as both.

AMY GOODMAN: And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman in New York, with Democracy Now!’s Juan González in Chicago.

Juan, our deepest condolences on the death of Denise Oliver. The two of you were both in the Young Lords. You helped to found the Young Lords here in New York.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, Amy. Thanks.

Well, it’s impossible really to overstate the impact that Denise had, not only in her early years as a brilliant, articulate and fearless member of two iconic revolutionary groups, the Young Lords Party and the Black Panther Party, but on thousands of young people who, for decades, were inspired by her example, by her writings on music, culture, politics, by her scholarship and her teaching. And her work continued until just days before her death.

As you mentioned, she was the first woman in the top leadership of the Young Lords, first as minister of finance, and then of economic development. She helped develop many of our Serve the People programs and helped to shape and write some of the key literature we produced back then. She played a pivotal role in the design and production of our newspaper Palante and our weekly radio program on WBAI. And she was a co-founder, with Iris Morales, of the Women’s Caucus, that battled against oppression of women both in the broader society and within the movement itself. And, of course, she joined the Panthers in ’71 following the disastrous split in that organization between the Huey Newton-Bobby Seale wings and the Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver wings. And for a while she lived in Algeria and other parts of Africa with Eldridge and Kathleen.

But Denise was never afraid to speak her mind, to challenge authority and to tell her comrades what they needed to hear — not what they wanted to hear — and she always did it with love and kindness. And that was instilled in her by her parents. Most people don’t know that both of her parents were really activists and traveled in left-wing circles in the 1940s.

Her mother, Marjorie Roberts Oliver, was from Philadelphia; her father, George Bodine Oliver, from Chicago. They both met at Western Virginia State College. Her father was a Tuskegee Airman and a tremendous athlete and a tennis player. And after the war, they moved to New York City so he could pursue an acting career. And there, he met many prominent African American activists of the day — Paul Robeson — and he got his first major break with the great Puerto Rican actor José Ferrer, who cast him in Lillian Smith’s Broadway show Strange Fruit, and then in Cyrano de Bergerac. But with so few roles for African Americans, her father ended up becoming a professor of dramatic literature.

And Denise really got to know many of the giants of the African American community of those days. She was in college at Howard University with Rap Brown. She met — she brought Fannie Lou Hamer to speak at Howard. Whether it was Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, all the giants of 20th-century African American legacy all knew Denise.

And yet she did her most important and, I guess, most lasting work in the Young Lords, advocating for the Puerto Rican community. And she was also for 20 years a contributing editor to the Daily Kos. And I just want to read a — the Daily Kos did a great memorial for her yesterday, and the editor said this: “For literal decades, every difficult decision about the direction of Daily Kos has included the same question: What is Denise going to think about this? Denise has been the voice in the back of my mind — advising me, guiding me, oftentimes scolding me. If I was going to ignore what I knew Denise would tell me, I had better have a damn good reason.”

And so, Denise, we’re all going to miss her. We’re all better for having known her. And the legacy she left behind is immeasurable.

AMY GOODMAN: Again, our deepest condolences. And for our audience around the world, you can see our full interview with Denise Oliver-Vélez at democracynow.org.

Yes, this is Democracy Now! When we come back, the president’s primetime address. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Sensación” by Helado Negro and Reyna Tropical. Today, their new album is released, their first collaboration, Helado Tropical. It was a pleasure to spend the morning with them yesterday. Soon at our website, democracynow.org, you’ll be able to see their performances, as well as the interview.