Denise Oliver-Velez, Young Lords Co-Founder, Dies at 78 After Brain Tumor Complications
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jul 20
Denise Oliver-Velez, Young Lords Co-Founder, Dies at 78 After Brain Tumor Complications
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 20
Summary
Denise Oliver-Velez died Wednesday at her home in Kingston, New York, at 78 from complications of a brain tumor, according to Devin McElderry, whom she considered a godson.
An original member of the New York Young Lords, she helped build the leftist Puerto Rican activist group into a force focused on Puerto Rican and Black communities while pressing women’s rights inside its male-dominated ranks.
July 14, 1970 marked one of her best-known actions: the Young Lords’ 12-hour takeover of Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx to protest filthy conditions and demand affordable health care.
That sit-in ended with an agreement letting the group run community health programs, including drug detoxification, and helped cement Oliver-Velez’s later career in radio, documentary film and academia.