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<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/investigations/new-pardon-push-for-kansas-city-black-panther-founder">http://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/investigations/new-pardon-push-for-kansas-city-black-panther-founder</a></small></small></small></b><br>
<br>
<b><big><big>New pardon push for Kansas City Black Panther founder</big></big></b><br>
<br>
Andy Alcock - April 5, 2016 <font color="#cc0000">Video at link
above</font><br>
<br>
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - In the east African nation of Tanzania in the
shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro, you can see zebras and elephants
roaming freely.<br>
<br>
You can also discover something you might not expect - an American
Black Panther.<br>
<br>
In his 2004 documentary A Panther in Africa, Aaron Matthews tells
the story of Kansas City Black Panther Party founder Pete O'Neal. <br>
<br>
Fifty years ago, the Panthers were formed in California as a militia
group to protect African-Americans from police. In 1967, they gained
notoriety when - armed and dressed in their characteristic black
berets - they marched into the California state capital.<br>
<br>
"It started out as self-defense," said Charlotte O'Neal, Pete
O'Neal's wife. "But then we saw all the things that needed to be
addressed."<br>
<br>
Shortly after Pete O'Neal formed the Kansas City Panthers, his
future wife Charlotte O'Neal joined as an 18-year-old.<br>
<br>
"After I met him, after I saw the commitment that he had to uplift
the community, it was over for me," said Charlotte O'Neal. "That's
what I wanted to do in my life."<br>
<br>
That service included feeding hundreds of children breakfast each
morning. Kansas City's St. Mark's Church, where Charlotte O'Neal
spoke to 41 Action News, was one of the locations. Other Panther
public service efforts included a free health clinic, sickle cell
anemia testing, political education classes and literacy classes. <br>
<br>
In 1969, police arrested Pete O'Neal based on a new law for bringing
a shotgun from Kansas City, Kansas, to Kansas City, Missouri. Even
though he wasn't found with the weapon, a picture of Pete O'Neal
with the shotgun in Missouri helped convict him.<br>
<br>
A judge sentenced him to four years in federal prison.<br>
<br>
"The only reason he was charged with that was because he was the
leader of the Black Panther Party," Charlotte O'Neal said.<br>
<br>
Concerned he might be killed in custody after fellow Panther Fred
Hampton was killed in Chicago, instead of appealing his case, Pete
O'Neal and his young wife fled the country.<br>
<br>
They ultimately wound up in Tanzania where they've lived since 1972.<br>
<br>
"It's no joke being in exile, it isn't," Charlotte O'Neal said.<br>
<br>
"I see the way people revere him in Africa," said former Kansas City
Star reporter Steve Penn. "He's just a great, great, great person."<br>
<br>
In his 2012 book, Case for a Pardon, Penn says Pete O'Neal should be
judged by his whole life, including decades of public service in
Africa providing food, water, shelter education and transportation
to locals and visiting Americans.<br>
<br>
Pete O'Neal has also adopted 23 Tanzanian children.<br>
<br>
"I knew that people would be looking at Pete's case and I knew that
in order to actually get someone to give him a pardon, you would
need to tell the whole story, the good, the bad and the ugly," Penn
said.<br>
<br>
Penn does not shy away from the bad or the ugly in his book. He
discusses a 1969 riot at Kansas City's Linwood Methodist Church the
Panthers started after their demands of the all-white church to
serve blacks in the urban core where the church was located were
unmet.<br>
<br>
Penn also writes about a hateful article in the Panthers national
newspaper after the fatal shooting of Kansas City off-duty police
Officer Edward Dacy, who was trying to stop a robbery. The article,
written by the Kansas City Panther chapter, featured a picture of
Dacy lying on a stretcher outside the store where he was shot with
the caption, "Kansas City Fascist Pig Performing His Final Duty."
Pete O'Neal has since apologized for the article.<br>
<br>
Penn also writes about Pete O'Neal's national interview on ABC News
discussing an investigation of the Panthers chaired by Missouri Rep.
Richard Ichord.<br>
<br>
"I would like very much to shoot my way into the House of
Representatives and take the racist, lying Ichord's head," Pete
O'Neal told the interviewer in January 1970.<br>
<br>
"If that's how I felt then, it's not a reflection of how I feel
now," Pete O'Neal said in 2004 in A Panther in Africa.<br>
<br>
"I don't want anybody to believe that I think Pete was some kind of
saint," said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II. "Pete made mistakes, most of
them were big verbal mistakes," he said.<br>
<br>
Cleaver, who is a third cousin to Pete O'Neal, has been trying to
get him a pardon for 25 years dating back to Cleaver's days as
Kansas City mayor. He''s now petitioning the outgoing Obama
administration.<br>
<br>
"This is a non-violent man at age 75, who's done remarkable things,
even in Tanzania, for Americans," said Cleaver. "This is it,
President Obama is the last chance," he said.<br>
<br>
"I would love for it to happen," said Charlotte O'Neal. "I represent
him, but it would be better if he could come and represent himself."<br>
<br>
Pete O'Neal has made it clear his life is now in Tanzania. But he'd
like to come and visit family, including his 95-year-old mother,
Florene, who's now in a Kansas City nursing home. He'd also like to
see children from his first marriage he hasn't seen in more than 40
years.<br>
<br>
There's no timetable or guarantee the Obama administration will take
up his case.<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
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San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
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