08/02/2026
We celebrate the work & life of Johanna Fernandez and Denise Oliver Velez, Young Lords/Black Panther leader & Johanna Fernández, Young Lords historian & prison abolitionist who have both transitioned.
Obit by Karen Juanita Carrillo New York Amsterdam News August 1, 2026
Dr. Johanna Fernández, Dominican American historian and prison abolitionist, passed away on July 30, 2026.
A professor of history at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, Johanna Fernández was a leading scholar of the Young Lords, the Puerto Rican and Latinx radical organization whose New York chapter fought for health care, sanitation, breakfast programs, lead-poisoning testing, and community control. Her award-winning book, “The Young Lords: A Radical History,” was based on oral histories, archives, and recovered police surveillance files obtained through a Freedom of Information Law lawsuit she filed against the New York Police Department. Her suit helped uncover the Handschu files, more than one million NYPD surveillance files compiled between 1954 and 1972 on anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, civil rights rallies, early LGBTQ+ rights protests, the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, and the Nation of Islam. The NYPD had for decades claimed the files were lost.
Denise Oliver-Velez (1947-2026) powerhouse political activist, feminist, journalist, community organizer, anthropologist, and the former Minister of Economic Development of The Young Lords Party and member of the Black Panther Party, Denise Oliver-Velez will always be radical, rebellious, and militantly Black.
Words: Black Women Radicals
