Johnson County Community College
Press Release

College Information and Publications
913-469-8500
Julie Haas, Associate Vice President, Marketing Communications, ext. 3120
Peggy Graham, Writer, ext. 3425
Tyler Cundith, Sports Information Director, ext. 3122

2/23/05
Story by Peggy Graham

Revolutionaries Live at JCCC

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – The ideas and actions of modern American revolutionaries are examined in two free, public presentations at Johnson County Community College.

• The Revolutionary Vision Lives will be presented at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 23, in the Polsky Theatre of the Carlsen Center, Johnson County Community College. The evening includes several events.
  
  A short one-act play, A Panther Kind of Man, tells the story of Peter O’Neal, founder of the Kansas City Black Panther Party, and his wife, Charlotte Hill O’Neal. The O’Neals now live in Arusha, Tanzania, where they conduct a program called Heal the Community, which works with troubled young people around the world. Carmaletta Williams, JCCC English professor who has reenacted historic roles for the Kansas Humanities Council, has the part of Charlotte Hill O’Neal, and Michael Patton, a teacher at Paseo Academy of the Arts and a local performance artist, has the role of Pete.
  
  Charlotte Hill O’Neal will do storytelling. Laura Partridge, who developed the play and is program director, American Friends Service Committee, Kansas City, Mo., will read poetry, and the African Drum and Dance Troupe from Genesis School, Kansas City, Mo., will perform. Performances will be followed by refreshments in the Carlsen Center lobby.
  
  
• A panel discussion titled American Revolutionaries in the 21st Century will be presented at 11 a.m. Thursday, March 24, in the Craig Community Auditorium, room 233 of the General Education Building. Charlotte Hill O’Neal; Nelson Peery, activist and author of Black Fire: The Making of an American Revolutionary; and Vernon Bellecourt, American Indian Movement, will form a panel to discuss social responsibility and justice. 
  
  Panelists
  
  Charlotte Hill O’Neal is a resident artist and program director of the United African Alliance Community Center. She is also a published poet and writer. She is a member of many philanthropic committees. Appointed to an environmental think tank in Arusha by the former Arusha regional commissioner, she was instrumental in beautification projects including the refurbishment of the Arusha Declaration National Monument. She has been married to Pete O’Neal, founder of the UAACC, since 1969.
  
  Peery grew up in rural Minnesota, the son of a postal service worker in the only African-American family in the town. His education during the Depression was supplemented by a year as a hobo, when he gained experience that no school would teach about racism and the American economy. His book, Black Fire, describes these years and also his service in segregated U.S. Army troops during World War II. A subsequent book, The Future Is Up to Us, is a series of political essays in which he discusses communism, capitalism, fascism, poverty, plenty, race, class, globalization and robotics.
  
  Bellecourt is a principal spokesman for the American Indian Movement and a leader in actions ranging from the 1972 occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to the 1992 Redskin Superbowl demonstrations. His involvement at Wounded Knee in 1973 led to a federal indictment. He was jailed for throwing his blood on the Guatemalan Embassy to protest the killing of 100,000 Indians. He was elected to a four-year term in his White Earth tribal government and developed a model program for the spiritual education of Indian prisoners. Bellecourt is the recipient of the City of Phoenix, Martin Luther King Human Rights Award 1993.

These two public events are sponsored by JCCC’s Diversity Committee; Student Life and Leadership Development; Williams; James Leiker, assistant professor of history; and Daniel Alexander, English professor. For more information, call the Student Activities desk, 913-469-3807.