American Exiles in East Africa (Part 2)

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2019

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pete O’Neal was a street hustler and small-time pimp who gave up crime to fight oppression, founding the Kansas City chapter of the Black Panther Party. Charlotte Hill was a high-school student who gave up a college scholarship to join the Panthers and do community service. Their love affair seemed charmed. But, after O’Neal was convicted, in 1970, on a firearms charge that he considered trumped up, he jumped bail and the couple fled the United States. Since then, O’Neal has never been able to return. After spending time in Sweden and then Algeria, the couple moved to Tanzania, where President Julius Nyerere was welcoming people of the African diaspora to join in the nation-building that followed decolonization. In a village called Imbasseni, not far from Mount Kilimanjaro, Pete and Charlotte O’Neal resumed the community service that had brought them together as Panthers. They founded the United African Alliance Community Center, a combination children’s home, school, library, and Y.M.C.A.—work that they might never have been able to accomplish in their home country. As well documented as the nineteen-sixties were, the staff writer Jelani Cobb notes, the stories of radicals forced into exile are hardly known. The producer KalaLea reports from Tanzania. (Part 2 of a two-part story.) Tshidi Matale, Kiva, and L. D. Brown of Grey Reverend contributed music for this story.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios.
0:13.9	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Jelani Cobb, a staff writer at the magazine.
0:19.2	We're going to pick up our story, American Exiles in East Africa.
0:22.6	Last week, we met Pete O'Neill, a former street hustler who became the head of the Kansas City Chapter of the Black Panther Party,
0:29.6	and Charlotte Hill, a high school student who gave up a college scholarship to do community service with the Panthers.
0:36.6	In 1970, Pete O'Neill was convicted on what he considered scholarship to do community service with the Panthers.
0:42.9	In 1970, Pete O'Neill was convicted on what he considered to be trumped-up charges related to transporting a firearm.
0:45.5	And then he said, oddly, but I'll allow you to stay out on bill.
0:51.8	That was the funniest thing.
0:53.5	I could not understand why he did that.
0:56.8	Now, you know, you've seen enough crime movies.
0:59.3	When they sentence you, they put the handcuffs on you, and they take you away.
1:03.6	Pete was suspicious, afraid he was being set up.
1:07.1	One day I was at the YMCA.
1:09.3	This policeman came in, and he said, I want to talk to you.
1:13.0	I said, man, I don't have anything to talk to you.
1:15.0	And he looked at me, and he started crying.
1:18.9	And he said, Pete, they're going to kill you.
1:21.3	He said, they're going to kill you.
1:22.5	And ain't a damn thing I can do about it.
1:26.2	Our producer, Kalalia, has been reporting Pete and Charlotte's story for much of the last year.
1:32.4	We'll pick up the story there.
	...

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