Kathy Change (1950 - 22 October 1996) was a West Philadelphia performance artist and political activist who killed herself in an act of self-immolation on the University of Pennsylvania campus in 1996. Born Kathleen Chang, she legally changed her name to Kathy Change to indicate her commitment to political and social change. She was the daughter of Chinese academics who emigrated to America in the wake of the Chinese Revolution. Change was briefl...
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Kathy Change (1950 - 22 October 1996) was a West Philadelphia performance artist and political activist who killed herself in an act of self-immolation on the University of Pennsylvania campus in 1996. Born Kathleen Chang, she legally changed her name to Kathy Change to indicate her commitment to political and social change. She was the daughter of Chinese academics who emigrated to America in the wake of the Chinese Revolution. Change was briefly married to Chinese American writer Frank Chin.
For 20 years she gave colorful one-woman street performances on Penn's campus and around Philadelphia to protest the government, during which she danced, sang, played the guitar, waved handmade flags, and made speeches. In a packet of her writings that she delivered to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Daily Pennsylvanian, and several of her friends and acquaintances on the morning of her death, she explained the rationale behind her suicide:
University police officer William Dailey was...
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