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SSM: Charlotte, let me first thank you for your hospitality when I visited your compound. You and your husband, Pete O'Neal, have built an amazing legacy at the United African Alliance Community Center. As a woman engaged in the Black Panther Party, both then and since your recent Panther reunion on the compound, what would you describe as your legacy?
CO: I am elated and feel blessed that our/my legacy definitely rests with the youth that we have worked with over the more than three decades we have been in Imbaseni Village, outside of Arusha, Tanzania. We have endeavored to impart and build upon the spirit of volunteerism that was embedded in us so strongly as members of the Black Panther Party and we have successfully done so. The legacy of this way of life has become something of a tradition among the youth in our area; youth who are eager to share what talents and knowledge that they have with others, without pay. This is unprecedented in an area that has been saturated with NGO [Non-governmental Organization] volunteers from the west for years to the point where the attitude of many people had become "only foreigners volunteer - let them do it!"
With our hard-working example that we as African people can also assist our communities; with more and more conscious youth learning about what the Black Panther Party actually stood for - that is, community service - it has become a "cool"' thing among many youth to show them what they got. It has become almost a competition to see who is doing the most to help the community. Whether in our daily classes at UAACC in music, fine arts, sports, dance, poetry, video and music production, sewing/handicrafts, community theater, cooking, language, yoga et cetera, or helping with the children at the Leaders of Tomorrow Children's Home, the Black Panther Party legacy of community service is alive and well in East Africa.
SSM: Did the Panther reunion find its way into your creative work yet?
CO: The Black Panther Party Reunions definitely have found a way into my creative work. I wrote a song titled "Seems Like Only Yesterday" and had it ready for the forty-third reunion that took place in Atlanta and...