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Interviewee: Denise Oliver-Vélez

Interviewer: Stephen Payne

Summary by Emma Garr

August 4, 2021

Denise Oliver-Vélez does not miss a beat during this interview with Bronx Historical Society Director Stephen Payne. Bridging her upbringing in both leftist and Hasidic Jewish communities that shaped her worldview, her work as an activist with the Young Lords Party (YLP) and the Black Panther Party (among many others) was both disciplined and revolutionary. Her early childhood consisted of many familial moves—from Brooklyn to Louisiana to Pennsylvania, and back—because of her father's work. Still, her love for New York City never wavered. Though this appreciation was not without a deep understanding of the limits of the city–which, as she described, “may not be a melting pot. It’s more of a mosaic” ([19:07]).

A self-appointed “amateur genealogist,” Oliver-Vélez recalls her remarkable family history easily. She begins with her paternal grandparents, who were an interracial couple before it was legal in their home state of Kansas. In line with this impressive lineage, her father would become both a Tuskegee Airman and the first African American to perform in an integrated Broadway show, Cyrano de Bergerac. This impressive recitation of her father’s accomplishments is followed by that of her mother’s side, on which her grandparents escaped slavery, her grandfather becoming a Pullman porter before the two moved to the Bronx.

As Oliver-Vélez retells these stories, she shares them with equal pride and seriousness regarding the complex discriminations that shaped them—namely her maternal grandmother’s death due to improper medical care, a result of systemic discrimination disaapointingly prevalent among lower-income citizens and minorities. Her father’s position as a Black man presumed to be white was also pivotal in her understanding of race as socially constructed, a principle that would be imprinted on her later in life by revolutionary thinker Malcolm X.

From family history she transitions to her own story, born in Brooklyn and quickly returning to the era of her youth—back in the city as a high schooler attending what is now The Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts, one of the most competitive public arts high schools in New York City. She recalls a race riot upon first stepping into school, but felt fulfilled by other parts of her education, notably, frequent frolicking at the Met Cloisters. After high school graduation, Oliver-Vélez was often found at The Truth Coffee in Harlem, a hub of Black intelligentsia. There, she worked as a waitress and met Malcolm X. He had defended her during an encounter with a customer whose colorist attitudes and rude disposition she had denounced.

After these experiences, Oliver-Vélez attended Hunter College in the Bronx and was one of only six Black students. As a result, she was escorted to integrate the sorority Sigma Gamma Gamma by some leftist-affiliated friends. Unimpressed with Hunter’s social culture, she applied for a scholarship to Howard University, which she received as she made her way to Washington, D.C. After attending Howard for some time, she was given free tuition and a stipend to attend an avant-garde school on Long Island, for which she was mistakenly granted the opportunity as a “Puerto Rican” student. After finally obtaining her degree, she returned home and began working with the YLP, a Puerto Rican activist group mobilizing for the sovereignty of Puerto Rico and responsible for providing services—food, medical care, lead shots, rides to school—to the local Bronx and East Harlem (El Barrio) neighborhoods in the 1960s and ’70s.

Disciplines

African American Studies | Public History

Abstract

Describing both the connection and discipline of the YLP, Oliver-Vélez remembers “detention” being held in the Bronx, where a member would read and recite their wrongs in writing before returning to Manhattan to pick up children for free breakfast programs, take them to school, pick up papers, and distribute them for the remainder of the day. She remembers this discipline and the art of the Palante newspaper (1970–76) as quintessential parts of most grassroots organizations of the time. Her commitment to the YLP was significant. Members lived collectively and created ingenious solutions to systemic medical, food scarcity, and education issues in the Bronx. But the YLP was different from many other collectives that sought to terminate these issues. As observed by Oliver-Vélez about many other humanitarian organizations, “intellectuals on the left are divorced from the communities they’re part of” ([1:35:40]). The YLP, however, was never reluctant to connect with the Bronx community, which helped to creatively combat problems like community reluctance around lead poisoning vaccines. Instead of employing discriminatory- oftentimes white- doctors, ex-heroin addicts from YPL’s drug rehabilitation team administered the shots, and had both greater accuracy with their application of the shots and better bedside manner.

Along with the triumphs of organizing came the turbulence of the YLP–especially a ferocious fight for feminism and queer integration during the group’s final years in the early 1970s (before the organization moved to Puerto Rico to continue its work). Misinformed machismo men of the YLP were put in their place by people like Oliver-Vélez, who had “always been encouraged to stand up…and argue” ([1:49:03]).

Explaining her experiences of colorism in youth and issues of feminism later in life, Oliver-Vélez presents her story showing undeniable wisdom. Her contributions to the YLP and (detailed in part two of this interview) the Black Panther Party are no surprise, considering the revolutionary histories of her family. Denise Oliver-Vélez is, unlike the issues she describes among organizers, an example of the perfect unison between community connection and inspired ideas which enable change. Her affable personality perfectly blends with her wise words, in both this interview and her life’s work.

LINK TO VIDEO INTERVIEW: http://cdm17265.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/baahp/id/92

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