The challenge

For too many people, the civil rights movement is ancient history; they take for granted its achievements and feel disenfranchised and powerless to change today’s society. John O’Neal and Theresa Holden seek to revitalize both the memory of what took place and the knowledge that the movement is not over. “The movement of black people from our place at the bottom of the socio political power system has been the greatest tool for a more just order,” O’Neal says. “Our movement is in a period of recession now. The greatest need, therefore, is to rebuild that movement.” To do that, O’Neal and Holden offer the power of stories — collected before they are lost; told while there is still time and hope.


Seeds of commitment

John O’Neal was born and grew up in Mound City, Illinois, which he recalls as “a rigidly segregated village” of 2,200 people. “The town was roughly 50-50 black and white. Our families and our community did all they could to isolate us from the dangers of officially sanctioned race discrimination,” he says. Because O’Neal and his brother argued, as brothers often do, their mother developed an instrument she called the peace table. “My brother and I couldn’t leave the peace table until we worked out an agreement that would solve the problem. If Mother agreed, she ratified it and we’d be off to fight another day.” These early experiences led O’Neal to understand that the world, despite its fissures and conflicts, is a community to which and for which we all are responsible. “I recognized that our family was privileged in the context of our community. It was also clear that despite our privilege, as black people we were subject to the oppression and exploitation born of racism. In time it became clear to me that black people (or anyone else who is oppressed and exploited) would continue to suffer collectively until we organized to throw off the oppressive and exploitative conditions and replaced them with conditions that strengthen the virtues of democracy and freedom.”

Theresa Holden was born in a small Texas hill-country town, where she witnessed prejudice and racism aimed at her African-American and Latino neighbors. A half-century later, she says, the problem is wider, broader, and deeper. “As a child, I watched as my family and teachers wrestled with injustice and racism in their own particular ways. They did not win those battles for good, but I saw their struggles and their methods of fighting.” Holden’s family believed strongly in the power of love within families. And they were storytellers. “Educated, well-meaning and kind people have not ended the injustice and racismof our country. But my family’s stories, their love of people and sense of justice did guide me to the work I do today.”


Accomplishments

For John O’Neal and Theresa Holden, collaboratively collected stories are the keystone of arts based, social-justice organizing. Through their Color Line Project, O’Neal and Holden have convened artists, educators and activists, and helped them strengthen their understanding of each other and their heritage and community through the an established story-telling methodology called the story circle. In particular, the Color Line Project encourages people who participated in or were deeply affected by the civil rights movement to tell their stories. The process is deceptively simple, and “easier to experience than to grasp as an abstraction,” says O’Neal, a playwright, actor and director. When community members are brought together, their role is to be participants who also listen. Among the ground rules: “Trust that the circle will bring you a story. The stories you tell should be your stories: your own personal experiences related to the agreed topic. Not general histories, not second-hand stories, not your opinions about underlying issues. You don’t have to agree with someone’s story, but you have to respect their right to tell it.”

During the structured process, stories are tape-recorded, and later, in partnership with the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, archived. These archives are made available both to the participating communities and nationally. “Artists use the stories as inspiration to develop pieces that can then be shared with the community for continuing dialogue,” says Holden, an actor, designer, and theater teacher. “Educators and activists incorporate both the stories themselves and the methodology of story circles into their respective curricula, as new tools.” Many high school teachers, for example, have begun to use story circles not only in their social science classes, but also in the hard sciences.” Activists, too, have used the methodology to advocate and educate policymakers.

The Color Line Project has brought people together, in Glassboro at New Jersey’s Rowan State University, at an adjunct program in Camden, New Jersey and at the West Palm Beach Community College in Florida. The Dayton Story Project in Dayton, Ohio, and the Untold Stories Project in Tempe and Phoenix, Arizona, are examples of O’Neal and Holden’s work linking diverse communities. In the three-year Dayton project, representatives of several ethnic or racial groups gathered their stories about the history of Dayton, and then began to share them with the other groups. “In Arizona, we worked with African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and four different Native American tribes, as well as with different social/workplace groups, such as secondary school students, college students, campus police, retired persons, college departments, and a community based African American history museum,” Holden says.


Their leadership style

In addition to the value of story telling in building the broader community, O’Neal and Holden believe in story telling as an administrative and organizational tool. For example, they begin and end Color Line Project community meetings with a story circle, a process that creates respect, and quickly coalesces the group’s purpose and goals. O’Neal holds to the principles of democratic group leadership, as demonstrated and taught by Ella Baker, the founding mother of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. “Baker believed,” he says, “that the function of leadership is to serve the needs of the group as it moves to realize its interests.” The result is a bottom-up, collaborative leadership model. “I do not believe that leaders can be effective without seeking out and connecting with the energy, desires, and creativity of the community they are working with,” says O’Neal. And Holden adds, “A certain power is created when we listen to others, when we respect our fellow humans, when we recognize the dignity of all humankind; it is a power that can motivate, foster action and bring about change.”


The future

O’Neal and Holden are currently engaged in Color Line Projects in Cincinnati, Ohio, Flint, Michigan, and Reston, Virginia and they are planning with organizations in other cities for the development of new projects. In each community they aim to engage artists, educators, activists and others in that community to work together to build a greater appreciation of their common interests, and they have already begun building a national coalition of Color Line Projects.


More about John O’Neal and Theresa R. Holden

“The Color Line Project, the most recent evolution of John and Theresa’s artistic collaboration, is a multi-faceted community change process in the field of arts-based social justice. John O’Neal, a founder of the historic Free Southern Theater, is a leading advocate of the position that ‘politics’ and ‘art’ are complementary not opposing terms.”
— Joyce E. King, Provost, Spelman College.

“Their whole philosophy is giving people voice to unlikely sets of people, who have a different view of themselves. It would be hard to measure the impact. But your own good sense tells you that for people who have never been given a sense of themselves as artists, the experience is powerful. There’s a host of different venues where people might think of themselves differently as a consequence …to begin to think of themselves as leaders.”
— Peggy Outon, Executive Director, Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management.

“They’re not into quantitative things but I’ve seen people’s lives change as a result of their work. I’ve seen people get into the field because of their inspiration. I’ve seen audiences roar to their feet after John’s presentations. These are real people dealing with real problems, about life and death and racism. It’s wonderful to watch different audiences. …All are touched, engaged, respond to the performances. It’s absolutely all about unification and good will.”
— Steven Kent, independent director/dramaturge and head of the Steven Kent Institute for Conscious Acting at the University of La Verne in La Verne, California.