Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, I'm Aaron Haynes. I'm the editor at large
Speaker 1: for The Nineteenth News, a nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender
Speaker 1: politics and policy. We look at where our democracy remains unfinished,
Speaker 1: where women, people of color, and queer people are still
Speaker 1: not included. And later this month, I'll be your host
Speaker 1: for a brand new podcast from the Nineteenth News and
Speaker 1: Wonder Media Network called The Amendment. More on that soon,
Speaker 1: but for now, I'm excited to be your guest host
Speaker 1: for this month of Womanica, this Black History Month, we're
Speaker 1: talking about revolutionaries, the black women who led struggles for
Speaker 1: liberation from violent governments, colonial rulers, and enslavers. These women
Speaker 1: had the courage to imagine radically different worlds, and they
Speaker 1: use their power to try and pull those worlds into view.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about one of the most active contemporary
Speaker 1: revolutionaries of the twentieth and twenty first century. Her feminist
Speaker 1: work made sure women were at the forefront of revolutionary
Speaker 1: movements in nineteen sixties New York. Let's talk about Denise
Speaker 1: Oliver Vellez. Denise was born in Brooklyn in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: seven into what she called a political family. Family members
Speaker 1: and friends usually fell into one of three categories leftists, activists,
Speaker 1: and communists. Denise herself was no exception. When she was
Speaker 1: in third grade at the height of the Cold War,
Speaker 1: she refused to comply when her teacher asked her to
Speaker 1: get under her desk at a bombing drill. Her teacher
Speaker 1: was furious. The next day, Denise's father came into school,
Speaker 1: demanding to know why this teacher kept trying to push
Speaker 1: anti Soviet propaganda on his daughter. In high school, Denise
Speaker 1: joined the NAACP, where she participated in sit ins and
Speaker 1: anti war movements. She continued her activism at Hunter College,
Speaker 1: but disliked that there were very few non white students there,
Speaker 1: so Denise got a scholarship to attend Howard University. There,
Speaker 1: she quickly became part of the activist circle on campus.
Speaker 1: She joined the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee or SNICK,
Speaker 1: which she used nonviolent protests to advance civil rights. But again,
Speaker 1: Denise got the sense something wasn't right. Back home, armed
Speaker 1: self defense and protests had always been a matter of
Speaker 1: conversation with her family. She grew up hearing stories about
Speaker 1: relatives standing off against the KKK, or her great aunt Martha,
Speaker 1: who'd stay up at night scoping out the house with
Speaker 1: a shotgun to catch burglars. The idea that women, or
Speaker 1: protests more generally should be passive wasn't the kind of
Speaker 1: revolution Denise had in mind. While at Howard, Denise did
Speaker 1: meet some like minded people, though they weren't classmates. They
Speaker 1: were members of the Real Great Society, a New York
Speaker 1: City street gang turned anti poverty agency whom Denise let
Speaker 1: crash at her place. Later, when Denise returned to New York,
Speaker 1: she called them up looking for a job, and so
Speaker 1: Denise began a lifetime of community action work in the city.
Speaker 1: Shortly thereafter, Denise became a founding member of the New
Speaker 1: York chapter of the Young Lords. The group was founded
Speaker 1: in Chicago in the late nineteen sixties and by Puerto
Speaker 1: Rican street activists. They fought against gentrification, police brutality, and racism.
Speaker 1: The Young Lords took notes from the Black Panthers, joining
Speaker 1: forces with other local groups to create relief efforts. They
Speaker 1: provided free breakfast programs and advocated for tenants' rights. They
Speaker 1: led active protests like occupying Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx
Speaker 1: to demand better health care for the majority Black and
Speaker 1: Latino population it served, and they let garbage on fire
Speaker 1: to protest the city's discriminatory deployment of sanitation services to
Speaker 1: their neighborhoods. After a while, though, Denise began to notice
Speaker 1: an issue. The leaders of the organization were all men,
Speaker 1: which meant all the actual day to day work fell
Speaker 1: to the women Denise included. She brought it up to
Speaker 1: the male leaders, who offered her a position communication secretary.
Speaker 1: Denise told them sorry, but she couldn't type. It was
Speaker 1: a lie, but she knew she had more to offer.
Speaker 1: She ended up taking a position as an officer, doling
Speaker 1: out disciplinary actions. As more women joined the group, Denise
Speaker 1: organized them into a strong faction. She invited them over
Speaker 1: on Sundays for political education classes, which she called pe,
Speaker 1: where they learned about radical women from across the globe.
Speaker 1: They also developed a radical view on reproductive rights. Women
Speaker 1: should be able to decide not only when and if
Speaker 1: to have kids, but they should also be supplied the
Speaker 1: support to feed and care for those kids. When the
Speaker 1: leaders of the Young Lords tried to ally themselves with
Speaker 1: a decidedly anti feminist group, the women of the party
Speaker 1: joined forces with some of the younger men to demote
Speaker 1: the party's entire Central Committee and call for change. Among
Speaker 1: those demands, changing a central tenet of the Young Lords.
Speaker 1: One of the party's thirteen program points stated, machismo must
Speaker 1: be revolutionary. That is an oxymoron. Denise would later say,
Speaker 1: machismo will never be fucking revolutionary. Denise was added to
Speaker 1: the Central Committee as part of the new agreement. Along
Speaker 1: with other women in the party. She helped write the
Speaker 1: party Position Paper on Women, which solidified the Young Lord's
Speaker 1: feminist stance. She also became a major player in the
Speaker 1: group's newspaper, Polone, requiring at least one half of the
Speaker 1: articles to be written by women or about women's issues. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Denise became one of the Young Lord's highest ranking members
Speaker 1: as the Minister of Economic Development. But the party's time
Speaker 1: in New York was running short. The committee voted to
Speaker 1: relocate headquarters to Puerto Rico, a move Denise was not
Speaker 1: willing to make, so Denise quit, walked fifteen blocks to
Speaker 1: the Black Panthers offices and signed up. Denise worked primarily
Speaker 1: on the Panther newspaper in The Bronx. She continued to
Speaker 1: work in communications, eventually becoming the executive director of the
Speaker 1: Black Filmmaker Foundation and co founder of the pacifica network's
Speaker 1: first minority controlled radio station. As she continued to work
Speaker 1: in community organizing, she took her lessons from her time
Speaker 1: with the Young Lords to heart, namely, always have women
Speaker 1: on staff. In her own words, women need to be
Speaker 1: key in running shit and training other women. Later on,
Speaker 1: Denise worked in HIV and age research, conducting ethnographic work
Speaker 1: in Puerto Rican neighborhoods where the crisis was often misreported.
Speaker 1: Denise Taught is an adjunct professor of Anthropology and Women's
Speaker 1: Studies at Sunny Newpaults for many years. Today, she's a
Speaker 1: writer for The Daily Cause. All month we're talking about revolutionaries.
Speaker 1: For more information, you can find us on Facebook and
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wamanica Podcast special thanks to co creators Jenny
Speaker 1: and Liz Kaplan for having me as a guest host.
Speaker 1: As always, we're taking a break for the weekend, so
Speaker 1: talk to you on Monday.