Artist, activist to give spoken-word performance

Visual artist, musician and poet Charlotte O’Neal, also known as “Mama C,” will perform a spoken-word and music performance today, channeling memories of the time she spent on two continents as a human rights activist.

The performer left her hometown of Kansas City for Tanzania at age 19, after her husband, Pete O’Neal, was exiled because of his role in the city’s Black Panther Party.

“Brother Pete’s exile could have been something of a hell for both him and us but it turned into a blessing,” she said, reflecting on her home in Tanzania.

She refers to everyone as brother or sister — a sign of respect and equality.

Mama C was also a member of Kansas City’s Black Panther Party in the late 1960s and early 1970s before she and her husband left for Tanzania.

She has since been committed to social issues, said Joanne Hershfield, chairwoman of UNC’s women’s and gender studies department.

Hershfield directed and produced a documentary called “Mama C: Urban Warrior in the African Bush.”

Hershfield said the film is about how Mama C expresses African culture through art.

The two were introduced two years ago at a meeting in Raleigh at which Mama C was the speaker.

“I was so inspired by her story that I decided I wanted to make a film about her,” said Hershfield, who traveled to Tanzania in 2011 to shoot the film.

Mama C’s performance will touch on subjects about women, such as African-American women coming to terms with who they are, Hershfield said.

“A lot of her poems and music she writes really address issues that pertain to women in terms of identity and health,” Hershfield said.

Mama C said her work exhibits influences of the blues, jazz and gospel that Kansas City was famous for during her childhood.

She said she has always been an artistic person.

“I’m inspired by just about everything,” she said. “Whether it is a dream, whether it’s the wind, or whether it’s a wrinkle in my cloth.”

Her husband, Pete O’Neal, founded Tanzania’s United African Alliance Community Center in 1991 to promote ties between Tanzanian and American cultures.

The couple also created the Leaders of Tomorrow Children’s Home, which is under the umbrella of the community center. They currently provide care for 22 children between the ages of 5 and 15.

Hershfield presented a screening of her documentary on Tuesday night at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, and O’Neal attended, said Joshua Miller, a Ph.D. candidate who assisted Hershfield in planning the screening and today’s performance.

Mama C said she thinks everyone is an artist.

“All you need to do is open up your soul, let it all run out, and try to keep up with it,” she said.

Contact the desk editor at arts@dailytarheel.com.