User:Aleo mg/Denise Oliver-Velez

Early Education & Activism
In September of 1960, Oliver-Velez enrolled in Music and Art High School. Denise Oliver-Velez participated in activism when she was a teenager as a member of her local branch of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). New York City Judge, at the time, William Booth led the youth section of the Queens branch of the NAACP Oliver participated in. Oliver-Velez was apart of a civil disobedience action that took place in 1963 to demand that black workers employed in Rochdale Village's major construction project.

Howard University
In the fall of 1965, Denise Oliver-Velez transferred to Howard University, an HBCU in Washington D.C., after a year enrolled in Hunter College. At Howard University in 1968, Olive-Velez was suspended due to her refusal to "behave like a nice Howard lady". While she attended Howard University, she joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and participated in Students for a Democratic Society. Oliver-Velez, along with a small group of fellow black activists including Hubert Brown (H. Rap Brown), started a campaign at the university. Their goal was to improve Howard University's political and cultural methods in regard to showing awareness on black struggles of students and administration.

Meeting at Baraka's House
Felipe Luciano invited Oliver-Velez to a meeting at poet & activist, Amiri Baraka's house in Newark, New Jersey before she was a committee member in the Young Lords Party to discuss stronger alliance. At this meeting, Oliver-Velez, the only female Luciano invited from the YLP, observed the inferior behavior of the women in Baraka's organization. After Oliver-Velez's questions about women's roles were ignored, she left the meeting concerned and reflected.

Roles Within YLP
Denise Oliver-Velez was the first woman that was elected to be on the Young Lords Party leadership board, the central committee. While being a member in the YLP, Oliver-Velez first served as a minister finance and then as a minister of economic development. Amongst Olive-Velez's membership in the YLP, she also held the position of Officer of the Day in 1969. This leadership position called for overseeing daily activity within the organization and instilling discipline on membership and duties of current members.

Contributions
Denise Oliver-Velez was one of the prominent contributors to the Young Lords Party bilingual newspaper, Pa'lante. Oliver-Velez wrote and edited articles for Pa'lante newspaper as well as producing political artwork, publishing and distributing the newspaper. She was also included in the original Young Lords Party team where she helped to create the newspaper's first layouts.

Vista Volunteer
Oliver-Velez joined the Real Great Society (RGS), a Puerto Rican East Harlem social service in New York City with connections to anti-poverty programs. She also worked with University of the Streets to reform New York's youth gangs. Through networks from University of the Streets, Oliver-Velez taught Black and Puerto Rican students who were expelled from New York public schools about Black and Puerto Rican history.

Editor
Daily Kos.