Rev Left Radio - An Amerikan Family: Assata, Tupac, and the Black Liberation Struggle

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

Santi Elijah Holley joins Breht to discuss his book "An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created". For over fifty years, the Shakurs have inspired generations of activists, scholars, and music fans. Many people are only familiar with Assata Shakur, the popular author and thinker, living for three decades in Cuban exile; or the late rapper Tupac. But the branches of the Shakur family tree extend widely, and the roots reach into the most furtive and hidden depths of the underground. Whether founding one of the most notorious Black Panther chapters in the country, spearheading community-based healthcare, or engaging in armed struggle with systemic oppression, the Shakurs were at the forefront.   Drawing from hundreds of hours of personal interviews, historical archives, court records, transcripts, and other rare documents, An Amerikan Family tells the complete and often devastating story of Black America’s long struggle for racial justice and the nation’s covert and repressive tactics to defeat that struggle. It is the story of a small but determined community, taking extreme, unconventional, and often perilous measures in the quest for freedom.   Enter code "REVLEFT" at checkout for 15% off: https://leftwingbooks.net/discount/REVLEFT   Outro music: "LIFE" by Saba   Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. We just finished our best of series in the month of June, and now we're getting right back on track. Today with a wonderful, important episode with Santee Elijah Hawley, the author of a new book on the Shakur family, titled An American Family, The Shokores, and the Nation they created. We talk about Tupac. We talk about his mother, Afin. We talk about his stepfather, who had a huge impact on him, Mutulu. We talk about the Black Liberation Army and the Black Liberation movements that appeared in the 60s and 70s.

We have a long section on Asada Shakur, her run-in with the U.S. state, her prison break with her comrades, her exile in Cuba, Castro's willingness to take her in and protect her from the U.S. state apparatus, et cetera. just a really fascinating conversation. I've long wanted to do an episode on Tupac, a long wanted to do an episode on Asada. And this book came out, and I saw it was the perfect time to cover those figures and much more. So this is a really, really interesting and important work that I highly encourage people to go out,

check out, support, ask your local library to get it in, ask your local bookstores to get it on the shelves. It's really, really great. and this interview with the author, Santi, is wonderful as well. I'm also really excited to let listeners know that I have been in discussions with the friends and comrades over at Kersplebadeb, who is behind leftwingbooks.net. They put out books by authors like Torka Olausen, who we've had on the show, Jay Malfa Wad Paul, who we've had on the show many, many times, and many others.

They're a really wonderful source of really important, good texts in the most of the most of, Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist traditions. And we've long been a fan of them. They've been a fan of us. We've had many of their authors on the show, et cetera. And they reached out to me recently and let me know that we could start offering RevLeft listeners 15% off for all books from leftwingbooks.net. And also, if you order more than $50, you get free shipping in North America.

So if you, and I love this idea because not only are we on the same page, politically. I'm always looking for ways to get books into the hands of listeners at cheaper rates, you know, as low cost as possible because so many of our listeners are working class. And so, you know, money is a big issue for all of us. I know that, especially in these times. So when they reached out to me and said that if we give them a shout out, they would give 15% off to my listeners. I couldn't help but jump at that offer. So again, if you go and I'll link it in the show notes, go to leftwingbooks.net. At checkout, type in the code Rev Left, one word, all caps.

Rev. Left, one word, all caps. And you can get 15% off of the books in the store. A really, really cool collaboration we're doing with some comrades that do really important work and put out really, really important work by authors who are, I think, undervalued and underrepresented in intellectual life more broadly. So, yep, at checkout, the code is Rev. Left, all caps, one word. you can get 15% off of these books. It's a wonderful collaboration, and I'm happy to be doing it. But without further ado, here is my wonderful interview with Santee Elijah Hawley and his new book, An American Family.

Enjoy. My name is Sanseh Elijah Hawley. I'm a writer based in Los Angeles, California. I've been a writer for... many years, mostly journalism, nonfiction essays, but I published my first major book, just this last May, May 23rd. It's called an American family, the Shakur's, and the nation they created. It's about the history of the Black Literation Movement. I was told through the lens of the revolutionary Shakur family, Asada, Athenia Matulu, and others. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it's an honor and a pleasure to have you on the show. Well, this is a really not only crucial text, I think, and really important American history, but also comes at a very timely sort of topical period in American history where a lot of these issues that, you know, the Shakur family, if you will, and we'll get into, you know, what exactly that entails. But, you know, they were fighting against, we're fighting against many of the exact same, you know, issues of injustice and equality, white reaction, et cetera. So it's really important book.

I highly encourage anybody out there who's interested. in any of this to go out and get the book as soon as you can to support this wonderful work. Actually, it was our previous guests on the show, Mick Crenshaw, who I heard about this book through. So a big shout out to him. But yeah, just happy to have you on. Again, the book is called an American family,

the Shakur's, and the nation they created. So let's go ahead and just dive in to the first question because this book is ostensibly about the Shakur family. But on another level, you're using the trials and tribunal of this specific family as a lens through which to understand the broader struggle for black liberation in this country. So why did you want to focus on the Shakur family in particular, and why are they such a useful lens through which to wrestle with the broader black struggle in the United States? Yeah, it's a good place to start. And I mean, I've said before,

and, you know, the way I consider the Shakur family, I look at them like the first family of Black liberation. I mean, they were involved in every aspect. I mean, they were right there at the forefronts. People still today look to them for inspiration and guidance. And so for me, to use them to sort of look at their lives and what they did and what they accomplished to begin with sort of looking at the broader picture of Black liberation, you know, it just made sense because they were really at the forefront. They were really there. They were leaders. Whether the Black Panther Party, Black Liberation Army, Republican New Africa, and so on, revolutionary.

action movement. There's so many different black liberation organizations that were, you know, popping up in the mid to late 60s and then on through the 70s. And the Shakur family are people who are associated with or aligned with the Shakur family. You know, they were right there at the forefront. They were right there sort of just leading the charge. And in their lives really just touched a lot of people, you know, like for years, people would look to them as sort of this family that was really put in in the work that needed to be done. And so people would sort of take that name Shakur or at least, you know, really want to be aligned with them.

So by looking at the sort of history through this family or through this, you know, particular members of this family, you can really sort of trace this history, you know, from the beginning, from the 60s, uh, nonful today. So it just really made sense for me, you know, and especially people sort of are kind of familiar with the name Shakur, you know, mostly through to Tupac and somewhat through through Asada. So it was sort of a good introductory, you know, place or good starting place for a lot of these themes and a lot of this history was to begin with the Shikors. Yeah. And maybe before we go further, we should kind of talk about that surname a little bit, because as you make clear,

it's not necessarily that every single person with that last name was blood relations, but it represented something bigger. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, the Shikor name was really, It really had its beginnings in the mid, late 60s with the patriarch, who was Saladin Shakur, who was an elderly gentleman who was older. He was sort of a veteran of the movement. He was a Marcus Garvey acolyte. He also was a Malcolm X associate. And he changed his name at a late age to Saladin Shakur.

And he had two sons who also took the name Shakur for themselves. when they became involved with Islam, with Pan-Africanism, with black nationalism. And then others adopted the name for themselves who weren't necessarily blood relatives, but who wanted to align themselves with this revolutionary family and the work that they were doing. So to take the name was an honor, you know, or something that you did to say, I'm joining this family, you know, I'm joining this movement, but not necessarily everybody in the Shakur family, or at least who called themselves. selves of Shakur was, you know, a blood relative. It was sort of, you're joining this adopted

family. You're joining the movements. You're announcing your, your commitment to the struggle. So many of the people who we think of as Shakur's, they were, you know, they were born with their birth name, as they call it their slave name, and they would, they would drop their slave names and take out the name Shakur as sort of a mark of honor and a mark of commitment. So some Shakurs were born Shakur's, but most of them that we think of a Shakur's were really just, they took the name later as a form of a tribute and commitment. Yeah, it's very interesting. It's not unlike, you know, Malcolm Little dropping the Little and embracing the X in place of it. So that was a somewhat common thing at the time with the rise of the militant Black Liberation Movement. But before we get into the details of the book itself, I kind of wanted to touch on your methodology a bit. You have extensive interviews with members of the family, you have your own personal experiences, and you did quite a bit of empirical historical research. So can you kind of talk about your approach to this book and the different ways in

which you went about kind of putting it together? Yeah, when I first sort of set off started working on this book, I really came across a lot of contradictory information, which was, I mean, sort of why I wanted to write this book in the first place to sort of set the record straight, because there's a lot of information about their misinformation about people in this family and what they did. So when I started diving into old books, old out-of-print books and texts and sort of combing through old newspaper archives and transcripts, there's a lot of things that I felt like there's, you know, I was seeing this thread. I was seeing a lot of things that were sort of not making sense to me.

but I could see, if you read behind, sometimes the text, behind what the official law enforcement, you know, testimony is, you can kind of see where the truth is. And so I started, I started there. I started just reading a lot. I mean, it's been, you know, weeks and weeks just reading as many things as I could find that were available to the public. And then I started reaching out to people for interviews to sort of really get the

firsthand testimony. And then I had to line that with what I'd already read. And also, you know, Other people who are really involved in the movement, family members, family, you know, associates, comrades who would say things that, you know, based on their memories from 50 years back, so then I have to go back to my, you know, initial sources and try to align those with what people were telling me. At the end, yeah, it's just, I just had to just talk to as many people and read as many things as I could and then put those things together to sort of create this narrative, you know, and there's a lot of information out there. that is, you know, I would say misinformation, trying to paint certain revolutionaries and certain actions as being, you know, criminal and being misguided. But I have to really just use that, you know, take it with a green assault and sort of say, okay, let me talk to the person

who was actually there, see what they say. And then I'll just sort of give this information. I mean, I'm, you know, as a writer, I have to sort of just take in all these different things that I'm being told and not learning and sort of, you know, put it through a filter. and try to find, you know, the closest part, the closest truth that I can find. I mean, some things are just the truth as we know them and as we've learned over years. Some things are just, you know, I'm taking, I'm taking your word for it. That's why there's so many, there's so many quotes in the book. There's so many firsthand quotes from people who are there because I really wanted them to tell their stories.

I'm not going to jump in and say, I don't think, you know, that may, I may not have happened exactly like you say went down. but I'm quoting you this is the way that you saw it this is the way you perceived it so these are why I had you know I wanted so many interviews from the people where they had themselves is just sort of let them tell their own stories you know that's their truth so you know

let's just let them let them speak it yeah what were your just your personal motivations what inspired you to want to take on this project yeah I mean like I mentioned you know I had a personal interest at first I mean I am a long time Tupac fan and

you know, since back of the 90s. And so lately as I've become a writer and, you know, sort of writing more about social justice and racial justice issues and how that aligns with art and culture and, you know, where those things overlap, I started looking more deeply into Tupac's lyrics and his interviews and what he was saying. And I realized how deep he was and how, you know, things he was talking about, you know, were really just had a really great sort of historical context to it. He was really talking about some, like, historical things. And I was just like, how does he know all this? Where do you learn all this? So I started learning about his mother, Faney, who was, you know, influential, former, very powerful black anther in the 60s. And then also continued to be an activist in the 70s.

And then I said, okay, well, Fadie's cool, but who else in the family? Like, where did the Fannie learn this from? And I learned about Tupac stepfather, Matulhu Chikour. It was also very influential, continues to be influential. leader during that time and the movement and I was just like man who was this family you know like who

okay I got a you know for myself I was interested so I tried I tried learning more about the Shakur's and how they started and who they were and what happened to the you know other members of the family and the more I started kind of trying to find this information out for myself

I realized that there was not one place that really had all this information together that really laid out the timeline and the genealogy so I was just like well I got to do it I mean, I know there's other folks out there like me who really want to know who this family is and this history. And I just felt, I don't know, I just felt like if I want to know so badly, other people want to know, I also just think it's such an amazing history. I mean, I was learning things I had no idea, you know, I don't learn about a lot of, most of these things in school. So I was just like, you know, as a writer, I just felt like I need to put this information out there for others, people like myself who, you know, who really,

want to know. And also just share it for people who maybe haven't really given a much thought, but who could benefit from just learning about this history, learning about this history of activism and state repression. I mean, there's just so much in there. I think just for everybody who's kind of interested in wants to learn more, but doesn't really know where to go. That's why I wanted to write this book. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I'm in my mid-30s and we're starting to see this new generation, you know, Generation Z come up and, you know, be very upset. with the status quo for very good reasons. They were very active in the Black Lives Matter movement.

But so many of them, and it's sort of surreal for us, for those of us that are a little bit older, but so many of them were born after the 1990s, after Tupac and Biggie were completely gone, they didn't live through it. And so not only is this an important and unique and crucial work of sort of getting this information all in one place, but it's also really timely in introducing this history to a whole new generation of activists and organizers around Black Liberation, or around economic equality that are coming up right now. So I think for those reasons and more, this book is so, so important.

And I would also highly recommend anybody who's in any sort of organizing, you know, organization around these issues to think deeply about perhaps taking this book and using it as something that you and your organization can learn from, can go over, can read together, etc. I think is really, really important. I appreciate that. No, I really appreciate hearing that. Yeah. And I, yeah, I mean, like, you know, with Tupac, I think, you know, people who were, you know, were younger, people who weren't yet born when he was killed, they're just now finding their way to Tupac's music. I mean, there's something really timeless about it. And it really speaks to today. I mean, well, that's, you know, to say it speaks to today. I mean, speaks to every day. It speaks to, you know, it's sort of timeless in that way where he's talking about, you know, brutality. I'm talking about income inequality, and those things, I think people are just like, man, who was this dude, you know, back in the 90s talking about these things that we're going through today?

And that's why, you know, I think there's a bit of a Tupac resurgent. It's not because of, you know, his music. I mean, his music's good, but it's really people are fighting their way to him because of his lyrics and because of who he was. And I think people are starting to sort of reevaluate, you know, who he was, and wanting to learn more about what he's talking about. And I think Ballard looking at, you know, where he came from. Avi was raised, you know, how did he learn all this?

And applying that to today, like you say, I mean, like, these are lessons that, you know, the things that were going through today that they were going through back then. And yeah, in this book, you know, American family sort of lays out like, man, this is what you're up against. You know, you got to be sure you know what you're up against. And so that's, yeah, and I think Tupac was trying to say the same thing back of his day. Like, you got to be, you got to know what you're up against. before you, you know, before you really get started. Totally. Yeah, and we'll get more into Tupac and some of these individual figures here in a bit.

But I did just want to say that to your point, when I'm online and I see people rediscover Tupac or I see something from Tupac go viral, it's almost never one of his old songs. It's almost always one of these interviews from the 90s that are dug up by somebody where he's talking about these important cultural and social and economic and racial issues. So it's very interesting that in the 90s he was primarily known for his music and his artistic contribution, but now with his new generation of people who were born after his entire life, they're rediscovering in part through the music, but I think even more so through some of these interviews and these clips that make him seem rightfully so well ahead of his time and very thoughtful, etc. So I find that I find that very interesting. Yeah, definitely. Well, let's go ahead and move on. And I was hoping that you could situate the Shakur family within the broader context of the Black Liberation Movement that emerged in the 60s and the 70s, advanced by, you know, larger than life figures like MLK, Malcolm X and many, many more. And of course, the specific organizations that arose around this struggle at this time. So can you kind of give us some of the broader political and social movements that were happening in the 60s and 70s? Yeah, the Black Liberation Movement sort of just an umbrella term for a lot of things that was going on in the late 60s and 70s sort of coming after the Civil Rights Movement. I mean, a lot of younger generation, younger folks were kind of becoming disillusioned with the gradualism of the Civil Rights Movement and non-violence and integration efforts.

They were sort of just like, no, we need something, you know, we are going through our own struggles up here. And that's sort of where the Black Power movement began. and that's where the Black Panther Party came out of. And these are people who, these are folks who were inspired more by Malcolm X. And so when Malcolm X was assassinated in 65, a lot of folks were looking, well, who's going to be the next person,

who's going to be the next organization to sort of, you know, take up the mantle, who's going to lead us forward with Malcolm X's vision. So that's where Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, you know, that's where they took their inspiration from informing the Black Panther Party. But then, you know, in addition to the Black Panther Party, there are many other groups, smaller groups, other organizations all across the country

who were sort of also advancing this idea of black power and black self-determination like the Revolutionary Action Movement. And then there's the active Black Panther Party. There was the Republic of New Africa, which was a black nationalist, separatist organization that advocated for an independent black nation in the southern U.S. and the black belt. But all these different groups and organizations and leaders and activists were all sort of, yeah, they're all advocating for black self-determination.

And the Shakur's, you know, the Shakurs were part of the Black Panther Party, at least the Mumba Shakur and Zayakur were the sons of the patriarch, Saladin Shakur. And they were in Harlem. They were in New York City. And they formed a Black Panther Party chapter in New York City. And the Black Panthers in the East Coast, especially in New York, differed from the Black and the Party in the West Coast in different ways, a little more militant, a little more just, you know, they were there in the city,

they were, had different, just different needs, you know, different immediate needs for the community. But that's also where, you know, Afanee Shakur, she was a woman with Shakur's wife, and she became a leading Black Panther member in Harlem. and, yeah, and so the Shakur's really were sort of the first leaders in this movement, in the Panther Party in the East Coast chapter. Other Shikors would, should have joined them, like Matulu Shakur, was not related by blood, but he also took the name out of respect and tribute to the family, and he was a member of the R&A, Republic, and New Africa.

And so there's all these different groups. an activist who are all sort of working towards, you know, empowerment, self-defense, coming at it from a different angle, but all sort of working together, leading in different ways, sort of just, you know, how can we address our media community? So the Black Liberation movement really sort of evolved as a thing just to sort of be a catch-all term in a way, you know, for all these different groups and organizations who are sort of popping up, you know, a lot here, like springing up all over the country. and really, you know, really was led in a large part by the Shakur's, and the Shakurs are always, you know, the people who are using the name Shakur for the name, and there's other people who are considering themselves Shakur's who had a different name, like Seku Odinga calls himself a Shakur, even though he has a different name, you know, he just, it's just sort of like, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a philosophy, it's a commitment, it's a determination.

that goes beyond just the name. But yeah, they're all working in these various organizations that are popping up, sort of in the name of Black Liberation, you know, Black Freedom, Black Independence. But yeah, and that carried on for, you know, a couple of decades. Yeah, so, you know, there's many figures to highlight here. And I think we're definitely going to go through some of them. We've already mentioned Tupac, but maybe it's worth diving a little deeper because, you know, as we both know, when we hear the name Shakur, many people immediately think of Tupac first

and maybe Assad a second. and we'll get to both of them. But can you talk about Tupac specifically his childhood, how he was raised and influenced by his mother, Afini, and how that sort of shaped him into who he would eventually become as this huge, larger-than-life cultural icon? The Tupac, you know, he was born one month after Afini,

his mother, was acquitted on conspiracy charges. It was a very infamous trial in New York City where 21 Panthers were indicted. Black Panthers in New York were indicted on conspiracy to shoot police officers to bomb certain locations in New York City. The trial, yeah, I mean, the book opens with the trial. It's a very monumental part in this history. But Tupac was born a month after his mother was acquitted.

She became pregnant while out on bail during the trial. And when he was born, you know, his mother, raised him. She was a single mother, but she had the support of, you know, other people in the movement, you know, other Panthers, other people who are, you know, in the Black Liberation Movement, activists, you know, this is the people who he was surrounded by. You know, he was surrounded by this community. They helped raise him. And he was raised, you know, a feigning his mother all raised him with the idea that he would carry on the movement. I mean, after so many years, you know, the movement started to sort of lose steam.

various causes. I mean, there's the FBI's Cointel Pro program. There's just in fighting. There's a lot of things that were just sort of leading to breaking up this, you know, this really strong movement. And so Tupac was a child of the movement.

I mean, that's how he was raised. He was raised to be like, I'm going to, you know, I'm learning all these things. Everyone that's helping raise me that, you know, is teaching me about, you know, what we went through.

and sort of shaping him, you know, with the hope that he was going to, you know, be the next generation that was going to sort of get it going again, get it started. And that's how he really saw himself, too. I mean, even early in his career, you know, he's 1819. He was going to use rap music as a vehicle to sort of spread this message. I mean, his early, his early rap, its early lyrics were, you know,

was deep, just about the Panthers, about this history. He was name drop in Asada, Geronimo Bijaga, Matulu. He wanted to, you know, share with his peers, this history. You wanted to, for a while, he was a chairman of the New African Panthers, which was a youth organization. So he was really going to put in his work. He was really going to do that. And he's really committed to doing that. You know, music for him at the beginning, and I'd arguably say, you know, through most of his career,

he wanted to use music as a tool to reach people who really needed to hear this message. You know, young black men and women in America, he wanted to speak to them directly using music. And his message, you know, sometimes veered into other things, other directions, you know. But that's what he was and that's how he was raised and that's how he carried that with him. That sort of, you know, that drive, that determination, that knowledge within him, you know, his whole life. Yeah, definitely. And I've long argued. on this show for many years at this point that there's like a direct line one can draw between the black militant movements in the 60s and 70s up through the creation and

perpetuation of hip hop these are deeply sort of connected things in the sort of cultural history of black America and Tupac is this larger than life figure that walked the line between both there is a sense in which you know he did do the the gangster rap sort of thing and he did it credibly and he also though mixed that with like deep conscious hip hop at the same time and i think like if you try to just be completely conscious you sort of limit the audience that you might be able to attract and speak to and if you just do the other side of it you know the street realities of growing up poor and black in america you might sometimes not be able to fully articulate the political messages that are needed to sort of inspire people to change it

But Tupac was really perhaps the first. Maybe there's another figure that I'm sort of forgetting about, but certainly no figure of his status was able to do both at the same time. But this was also a contradiction. I mean, he ultimately got sucked into sort of hip-hop and gang beefs was ultimately killed after a fight in Las Vegas between, I think, two different gangs. So this thing ultimately ended up undermining his entire life, ultimately. But what do you think about that ability,

for Tupac to sort of walk both sides of hip hop in a way that few others could achieve. Yeah, I mean, you nailed it. I mean, yeah, he did not limit himself to just one type of message. You know, he had the party anthems.

Obviously, then he also, on the same records, you know, he'd follow a party at, you know, anthem with his really deep, you know, political, social conscious, you know, song. And that's for him, that's, you know, I've said, I've called it a contradiction before. I think I mean, just called it a contradiction, you know, earlier that he had this.

But I really don't know if it was literally a contradiction within him. I feel like he believed in both. He liked a party. But he also believed, you know, and changing the system. Like, that's not, you know, it shouldn't be a contradiction to have those two things within you. And he enjoyed them both. He liked the entertainment. You like the attention and the attention from women and the money.

But he also, he really, you know, was a child of the movement and really. really was committed, I think, 100% to the struggle. So that was just both sides of him. You know, he had two sides that just existed within him. And, you know, I think it's a shame a lot of folks, at least, you know, back maybe more so back in the 90s and up until recently. I think most people just equated him with death row and what he was doing when he was on death row, which was a short, he was on death row for maybe eight, nine months, you know,

of his career such a short you know just a minute you know compared with the rest of his his life and career but that's who you know

that's who he was with that's what he was doing when he was killed and so that's sort of who we think of him a lot of times think of it as you know death row west side

you know east coast west coast or Ilery but that's not what we were was there was just a moment where he got wrapped up in this you know kind of play acting role that he was

you know pretending to be it. And many people who I spoke to for the book who knew him, you know, a knew him for most of his life, would tell me like, you know, that's not, he was trying to get out of death row. He was, he felt beholden to Shug Night. But he also, he's, you know, contractually obligated to death row. And once he was finished with all that, he was going to come back around,

sort of get back on the message. You can kind of see that in his posthumous album, the seven-day theory, the Don Kuluminati, you know, where he's starting to sort of move a little more. I guess his lyrics are starting to become more, you know, conscious a little bit. He's talking about deeper things. But yeah, he had those two things within him. And he needed both to, in order to reach his audience. His audience was young black men and women who were, you know, in inner cities, who were in ghettos, who were in projects. You know, he needed to reach those folks who he felt like, you know, who needed this message most. And you can't do that if you're just talking politics. You've got to get them, you know, you've got to get them the party anthem too.

You got to get him something to ride to pull him in and then hit him with, you know, hit him with something deeper. So that's what he's doing, I think, you know, that's what he's trying to do. That's what he's always, I was his motivation. Definitely. And definitely inspired many artists after him to do similar things. Somebody that jumps completely to mind right away is like dead prez, much more on the consciousness political side of things, but would also be able to speak to the street life, would also, you know, release sort of party anthems, etc. So this Tupac influence, I think still to this day in a lot of ways. It's shaped. It's morphed. It's changed. But it continues to inspire artists to try to speak to both sides of that coin. I was recently actually

in Las Vegas and I made it a point to kind of go visit the place where Tupac was unfortunately killed and sort of pay homage to him in his life. And it struck me as this often strikes anybody who studies the history of Black liberation in the U.S. how all these figures that rise to the top tend to, you know, get killed, get assassinated. And you always wonder, the question always lingers. What if MLK had lived a full life? You know, how would his politics have evolved and matured? Malcolm X. Right when he was starting to make a really profound and fascinating sort of turn in his ideological worldview, you know, he was assassinated. Tupac would have been fascinating to hear, you know, what his take on Black Lives Matter, the rise of Trump, white

reaction, et cetera. These things are are stolen from, from us in a lot of ways. These people are stolen from us. And it's a real shame. It's heartbreaking, to be sure. But I did wonder, you mentioned he was raised by a single mother. Did he know his biological father? Did he have, I think he had multiple stepfathers? Who were some of the father figures in his life? He did have multiple father figures. He didn't, he didn't know his biological father until Many years later, until he was after he was shot in the quad studios, and he was in the hospital recuperating, he shot the first time and he was recuperating.

His biological father came and introduced himself, Billy Garland. He didn't know Billy Garland this whole life. He didn't even know the name. He never heard the name Billy Garland up until that point. But up until that point, growing up, he did have father figures, two in particular, very different. There's a person who he believed what was his biological father. He went by the name

Wiggs. He was just a street hustler, just a street dude. You know, not a political dude at all, not a Panther. Just a street dude, smoked crack cocaine with his mother of fainty, just a hustler. But he did, according to Tupac, you know, in his later interviews, did treat him well, did treat Tupac. well, you know, as well as somebody who's, you know, a street hustler and spoken crack with their mother can do, but he was at least supportive of Tupac and, you know, treated him as

his own son for a while. But then Legge was murdered, he was killed. And, you know, that'd really heard Tupac, that really heard him. But before, before Legs, he was, he had another stepfather, another father figure, Matulu Shakur, Matulu and Afani were, uh, married on, you know, it was more like a ceremonial marriage. I mean, a lot of marriages back in the days in this community were more ceremonial than, you know, going to the courthouse or getting officially recognized by the state, you know, as a man and wife. Mutulu Shakur and Afani Shakur, they were married and they were also very involved in politics and political activism. And so when they were together, which is a short time, you know, they, in Mutulu, Also, you know, treated Tupac as his own son, but Tupac was really young at that point and didn't really look to Mitu as his, you know, true father. I mean, he was like a father figure. He's a person that was there in his life. But Mitu was only around for a short time before he got caught up in a really devastating action in 1981 and had to go on the ground and was eventually caught and incarcerated.

So, you know, there's just two people who were really formative in Tupac's young years, Matulu and Legs. You know, Legs was killed. Matulu, you know, was a fugitive from the law for years and then was finally caught and incarcerated. And that's, you know, those were his two major father figures. But also will say that Mutulu, in aphidi, when they were married, when they were together, they had a child, did a daughter named Setsua, which is Tupac's sister set. So Matulu is Matula was Setsua's biological father. You know, you know, in Setsia was still, you know, she's still doing a thing. But yeah, so she, so the family was very, it's just, you know, it's just people kind of came and went in his life.

His mother was always there until, you know, but she had her own sort of tragic story like later on in life. So he was just surrounded by just trauma, you know, and struggle and people who were kind of like not really there for him the way that they needed to be there for him. They were there either as addicts or revolutionaries when he just needed a father. Can you talk a little bit more? You just mentioned Afini had, you know, later in life traumas and difficulties. Can you touch on that a little bit? Yeah, you know, Afani, to me, I mean, when you read this book, Afini kind of come, and I didn't know this, you know, coming into it,

how much Afini was going to be so just heroic, what she did and what she accomplished, was she survived after she was acquitted in the trial she continued to do work in the community tenants organizing like tenants rights organizing

legal aid to people who needed legal aid who couldn't afford it giving speeches to people about her work in the Panthers and so she was still doing work not so much with the Black Panther Party but just in the community

but she was highly revered highly respected by people because of what she did during the panther 21 trial you know she represented herself um she was very knowledgeable you know she's a great speaker really intelligent um and yeah just a leader and then after all that you know after everything that happened with a trial uh people weren't you know she was struggling to raise now two kids on her own or with a little bit of help here and there but you know from the community from people that she was with but she felt like the movement itself had sort of abandoned her in a way.

You know, she started, you know, she was struggling for money. She was, you know, struggling in poverty. And then eventually she became, you know, addicted to drugs and sort of got, fell further and further down the sort of darker hole of addiction. And that's really when the movement, you know, so called movement people, elders, veterans didn't help her, you know, they didn't step up when she really needed it the most. And she just went, you know, she spiraled further into this, this, you know, into her addictions to a point where, you know, Tupac and his sister, Setsuo had to sort of make do on their own.

You know, they were crashing on friends' couches. They were kind of get food on their own. I mean, after they moved from, they moved from New York to Baltimore and then from Baltimore to Marin City, California. In Marin City, yeah, they struggled. I mean, she was still addicted to drugs. Tupac was, you know, just trying to just, you know, get food on his plate, et cetera was also trying to, you know, struggling. And so it was just like kind of just really, just this, you know, really just,

they didn't really know what they were doing. It's sort of just drifting here and there, you know, but what if heady was going through, I mean, she felt betrayed, but she also was still suffering from the trauma of what she had survived with the Black Panthers, with the trial. You know, she'd almost been incarcerated for her whole life. And now she was on her own without really any sort of anybody there to help guide her. Like, what do you do now? You know, what do you do with your children? How do you, how do you, you know, make money?

How do you do this and that? So, you know, on top of that, her kids were also suffering from trauma. trauma of having, you know, parents who are being pursued by, you know, law enforcement, incarcerated, or killed. So there's just so much just trauma they were holding. And, but if any, um, if he eventually, yeah, she eventually went to rehab, you know, she kicked her addiction and then she was there for Tupac, you know, again, you know, there's a while there where she wasn't really there, wasn't really present, but then she finally

managed to overcome her addiction and yeah and then she was there and she was back in it well yeah i mean all the all the trauma that she must have faced in her life of course all of that also includes the death of her son because she didn't she didn't pass away until 2016 i believe so she was she was obviously alive uh when when her son died and that must have just been another layer of tragedy and heartbreak that would crush most people yeah i mean i can't even imagine just yeah everything i mean like you say that's that's absolutely right i mean she survived so much and then yeah her her first child you know only son uh to be killed this way uh can't you imagine but she you know she but she started the foundation and as you know she she started sort of reaching out well you know what can we do in

his in his name like what would he want and she started the foundation to sort of help other kids pursue the arts, you know, pursue artistic, you know, creative outlets. She also continued to give speeches to other people who were, you know, grieving mothers. She'd be a speaker for people who were also suffering from the same thing. She spoke at a conference that was organized by Trayvon Martin's mother after, you know, Trayvon Martin was killed. And so Gaffini came and spoke to that just to, you know, try to give a little bit of hope

to other mothers who have experienced, you know, know, this kind of unimaginable loss. Yeah. So she was, I mean, she was always doing what she could to help others, you know, mostly, you know, whether speaking or encouragement or just motivation and inspiration, she was always, you know, doing what she could. Yeah. I mean, a true hero. And I think people on the American left to identify with this tradition of, of, you know, black liberation, of attempts to overthrow capitalism, anti-imperialism. We really need to revisit. and elevate Afini Shakur as somebody that is a part of the tradition that we carry forward. And in your book, I think, is going to be a crucial piece of doing that.

But another towering figure in the Shakur family tree is the one and only Asada Shakur, the brave revolutionary who was targeted by the U.S. state, imprisoned, wrote books, escaped prison, had bounties placed on her by American politicians and police, and still lives in exile in Cuba to this day. She is still, I believe, on the FBI's most wanted list, and I believe they're also still offering up to $2 million for her capture and return. Donald Trump even called her out by name as someone he wanted extradited back to the United States when he was reversing Obama's attempt to thaw relations with Cuba.

Can you talk in detail about who Asada was, her militant activism, and how she ended up in Cuba? Asada Shakur was really just she was just a really bright intelligent college student, city college in New York who good supportive family and kind of got involved with

Black Panther Party at a young age in New York she actually joined the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party and was quickly disillusioned the time she joined in the early 70s was sort of a moment

with the Black Panther Party itself was sort of coming apart of the scenes for a lot of reasons but what she really didn't like what she saw was sort of the misogyny you know of a lot of the leaders in the party

and at this time she formed a close friendship with Zaid Shakur who was Saladin's son his oldest son Zade who was a member of the who was a leader in the Black Panther Party

but was sort of pulling away, a lot of people were sort of pulling away from the Panthers. Once they realized that they were being infiltrated by undercover officers, undercover cops and detectives, they decided that they wanted to go underground and do more guerrilla tactics, more underground things that weren't on the surface because they recognized that being exposed to law enforcement, just to open them up to being infiltrated. So Asada joined this sort of new, group, which was a very loosely organized group that were calling themselves a Black Liberation Army. There was different cells of the BLA throughout the country, but New York really was,

you know, maybe at the most active members. So Asada joined up with him. At this point, she wasn't really even going by it. She wasn't known as Asada Shakur. She was still known mostly as Joanne Tresselmard. She wasn't very known by the community, by the movement itself, and she was always sort of, you know, underground, you know, under the surface. She just, she was, she was traveling with these different various cells and various BLA members. Allegedly, I'll say allegedly, I'll say allegedly committing these acts, these revolutionary or criminal, depending on who you ask, acts of bank robbery, or, you know, as they would call bank expropriations, robbing drug dealers, robbing social clubs, shooting police officers.

These are the things that the BLA was accused of and that she was a part of, allegedly. And, you know, this went on for, you know, not even that long, two or three years at best. but her name sort of became more known to law enforcement and people in the media really ran with this idea of her being the leader you know like they really like this idea of this this intelligent you know young attractive black woman who was the leader of this underground guerrilla group it just you know it's just sort of this this mythology that was starting to build up around Osada.

And so she was, you know, she was a fugitive because they were looking, you know, she was a suspect in all these things, bank robberies, police shootings. She was a suspect. And she was a fugitive. And she was finally, they finally caught up with her in 1973 on the New Jersey Turnpike where she was with, she was traveling with Zade and Sudiata Coley, another BLA member, Black Panther Party member. And during this shootout, real estate. trooper pulled them over, the state trooper was killed, and Zaid Shakur was killed. Sundata and Asada were both captured and arrested, and this is really where, you know, after Asada was arrested, it was really where she became Asada Shakur, you know, the person that we know

her as, because that's when she had a platform, she could really speak to people. she, you know, she was, she was, began writing, she began, you know, being the sort of leader that people thought that she was, she stepped into this role. She, you know, she became known as Asada Shakur, where before people didn't really know who she was or what she was about, she stepped into this role as this, you know, this person who was a revolutionary fighter. And then as the years went on, she had so many trials, you know, she was facing trial for this, bank robbery, this bank robbery, this thing, this, that thing. Every one she was either acquitted of where, you know, it was dismissed. So she was beating all these different cases up until she was finally in 77, until she was finally convicted of the murder of the state trooper in New Jersey

and sentenced to life in prison. And at this point, she really had become sort of a worldwide, you know, cause-celebrab. Everybody knew who she was. and people were rallying to her defense saying that she was railroaded, you know, proving how, you know, that she couldn't have possibly, you know, done the things that she was accused of. So people really came to her defense. She maintained her innocence all the time. And at this point, you know, at the end of the 70s, the, the Black Liberation movement was sort of trying to find its way back. Like, they were just trying to find, like, there's a lot of, for a lot of things, you know, like,

that I touched on in the book because a lot of things were happening that were just a lot of folks who were just feeling like a drift like we needed to get the movement going again. We need to, you know, jump start was going on, inspire people again. And so there was a revolutionary task force which was created with both black and white activists, like militant activists. I mean, former members of the Weather Underground who had been, you know, fugitives for years. linking up with BLA members and, you know, Revolutionary Action Movement and Republic and New African member. I just like, it's sort of just like, you know, this, this group, this interracial group

of really committed diehard activists who are just like, know what we're going to do, we're going to free Assad. You know, many of them didn't know Assad personally. I mean, I knew of her, but it was more like, you know, this is a sister who, that needs to be freed. And then also, it's a great opportunity for us to show, like, we're back. You know, we can do this, we can pull this off, and it'll inspire other people to sort of get the movement going again once Asada is free. So that was like the motivation was freeing Asada to sort of show, you know, that we can accomplish, you know, the impossible.

And when they freed her, I mean, the, and so in the book, you know, when you read Asada's autobiography, which she wrote after she was already freed, safely in exile in Cuba she doesn't talk about these she doesn't talk about her her liberation from prison at all which obviously you know she's trying to protect people

or she just doesn't feel like that's something that people really need to know about but it's always you know everybody everybody as long as I read that book when I first read it back in college people I've talked to and everything everyone's always just like all right

at one point you know she's talking about how she's in prison And in the next moment, the next page, if he says, I'm in Cuba. And it's like, hold on. Like, I feel like what happened there? How did she get out of prison? You know, and like she was, you know, one of the most famous, infamous, you know, prisoners at the time. She didn't just leave. So how did she do it?

And so I really, so in this, you know, an American family, and I do kind of go into what happened, you know, how she broke out of prison. And it's actually really kind of incredible story. You know, like, it's really, you know, it was, it was a very, very organized, well-planned action by this task force. And it went off perfectly, you know, not a shot fired, nobody killed. And it really, for a moment, it really did have the intended purpose of really galvanizing the movement. But, you know, after that, after, after Osada was then, you know, she was underground in the U.S. for a while and safe houses. And then she decided that she wanted to go to Cuba. So they helped her, you know, with the fake IDs and everything.

It was a little easier to do that back then, you know, with a fake ID. But, yeah, and then she was, you know, granted political exile status in Cuba by Fidel Castro. But the movement itself after that happened, you know, they had to figure out what was their next thing. And the next thing that they attempted was a disaster. But at that point, Assad was already safe and out of the country. How did you figure out the details of the prison break? You know, I mean, it is, there was testimony. After her liberation, law enforcement agencies in New York and New Jersey went on a tear.

I mean, they were kicking down doors. They were angry. You know, they were big mad. they were kicking down doors rounding up wherever they could that was that you know may have been associated with this um and all this is detailed in uh court transcripts testimonies newspaper articles um it's all there and if you if you comb through it you see people testifying people who were arrested after then so you know a lot most people didn't talk uh a few did you know A few were, you know, turned state witness, especially after the disaster in 1981, which is a separate story, but it was just a disaster for the movement and for many people involved.

Some of the people who were involved in this one tragedy in 81 were also involved in the liberation of ASADA. And at that point, you know, what happened in 1901, people were killed. Police officers were killed, security officers were killed, it was just, you know, it was a mess. And so they really, I mean, so they really were coming down hard on the remaining members of, you know, this movement, like coming down hard on everybody that they could. And during that, some of the folks would testify about, you know, they were also involved with the Sada's liberation. This is how it went down. So I got to, I got to just read some of those testimonies. But then on top of that, I also did speak to, and I personally sat down and talked to a veteran soldier, Sekku Udinga, who was directly involved.

I mean, he was directly involved and did many years in prison for his involvement with Asada's liberation. And he told me, you know, he straight up, like, talked about, you know, how good of an action, how perfect of a action it was, how well-executed it was. And, you know, at this point, he's done his time. He did over 30 years in prison, in part because of, you know, this particular thing. So he can, you know, more or less be free to talk about it. And so he did, you know, corroborate a lot of these things for me. So, yeah, I got to, I got, it's the benefit of, you know, sitting at a table with somebody

who was right there, you know, at that. that moment. That's that's powerful. Can you give us like was it an infiltration? Was it like a blowing up a wall? Like what was the basic strategy for for getting her out? Can you tell us that kind of quickly? Yeah. I don't want to give away the whole thing, but it was pretty much it was just it was nothing was blown up. Nobody was shot. There were guns involved with it. They did hold two of the prison guards hostage for short time and but it was just it was like where assata was uh where she was incarcerated at that moment at Clinton correctional in upstate New York on Jersey it was it wasn't the

hardest play it was sort of lax it was more lax than you know any sort of like you know what we have today you know these these like super max prisons yeah you know she had very There's a visitor's list, and she put some names down on a visitor's list. And one of those visitors, I mean, using a different name, was Sakeko O'Dinga, who managed to smuggle in a gun, you know, during his visit. And he was able to pass one to Asada. And then from there, they held these two guards hostage. And so they were, until Assad and everybody else that was there was clear.

And then the two guards were, you know, eventually let go. Awesome. Yeah, well, if you want the full details of that, definitely check out the book. But that was tantalizing for sure. And, yeah, absolutely fascinating. And thinking about how to do that in today's hyper-surveiled world is like almost impossible to imagine. But, yeah, back then things were definitely different. Before I move on from this, I don't know, can you talk a little bit about, like,

I'm very interested in, like, Cuba's side of things and what Fidel Castro's response. to the U.S. was, as the U.S. has been for a very long time trying to get her extradited back to the United States. As Castro just, you know, straight up, this is a political prisoner that the racist American state is attacking and the people's island of Cuba is going to take care of her? Was it as simple as that or was it more nuanced? I think, you know, I think it's just a matter of Fidel Castro likes to thumb his nose at the U.S. whenever he could. And this was an, he did support a lot of, I mean, he did grant exile, political exile and asylum to a lot of black and non-black revolutionaries, U.S. revolutionaries. I think even today, there's still like something like 70 fugitives, you know, living.

And it's not just, it's not just Asada. I mean, Asada was, you know, he recognized her worth. He recognized her importance. he recognized her as a sincere revolutionary worker but she was one of many who also sought political asylum in Cuba and he used

I mean I'm not to say he used them I mean I really do feel like he was a you know he really did respect what they were doing but I think beyond that he just really loved the fact that he could do this and the U.S. couldn't do anything you know about it like they could demand all they want to you know return these fugitives but

he can say no and that's it and then he has the power and but so today you know then after he passed and the power was passed uh onto the presidency which became you know raoul Castro and Castro is the same thing like no we're not going to give people up to the u.s you know Assad or anyone else uh and today current president Miguel Diaz Cannell You know, I think Assad is not a high priority for anybody for the U.S. Or I think her name just comes up every once in a while as a political talking point. You know, I don't think anybody really, I mean, yeah, there are people I know in law enforcement, FBI, you know, the family of the state trooper who was killed. You know, there's people who still really would love to see Assad extradited to the U.S.

but overall, I mean, she's not a high priority. I don't believe her either, you know, either the U.S. or Cuba, but, you know, she's, she's safe where she is. You know, she has not given any sort of public statements for many years, you know, because I think, I think that unfortunately she's now sort of in exile within exile, like where before she could be more freely, you know, she would give interviews, she gives, like, TV and media interviews, but now I think because of this $2 million bounty, the risk is a little higher for maybe some, I know, some independent person, some bounty hunter, you know, things that they can, you know, find her and capture. I think it's just a little, I think she's probably just like, I guess, not worth it, you know, to expose myself like that. Totally. Yeah, I mean, that's scary. I mean, because, yeah, just put out an offer and anybody that's hungry for money can, you

know, can be the one to carry it out, in theory at least. But I think you're absolutely right that, like, even when Trump called her out, it's not that Trump knows anything about the history or followed it. Some advisor probably said, hey, this is like a black Marxist revolutionary or whatever. It's the perfect villain to bring up when you're reversing Obama's, you know, attempts to try to make relations with Cuba a little better. So it's very opportunistic and cynical in that way. And then on Castro's side, I kind of totally agree with what you're saying.

saying there's no contradiction between him sincerely believing her to be a revolutionary who deserves to flee the the U.S. prison state and the brutality of that prison state. And he, you know, sincerely wanted her to be safe and, you know, all of that, while also seeing that this is a perfect opportunity to point out U.S. hypocrisy, the racism problem, that socialist experiments since the Soviet Union have been calling the United States out for, showing the hypocrisy about, you know, the U.S. presents itself as this beacon of freedom and democracy, but, you know, here's all these political prisoners who are fighting oppression and racial injustice, who are completely brutalized by the state, et cetera. So, yeah, there's no real a contradiction there. Just hats off to Cuba for keeping her safe and letting her live her full life outside of a terrible American prison. yeah yeah yeah as you put it you put it perfectly yeah exactly all right well let's go ahead and and i have a couple more questions as we're sort of wrapping this conversation up i do want to be

respectful of your time and i deeply appreciate you being so generous with it um so one of the the last questions i have is is when you were doing the extensive research and the interviews for this book um did anything like surprise you catch you off guard otherwise interest you or did something come to you that you think more people should know about or understand I mean, okay, well, you know, two things. I mean, the first thing is sort of more simple. I did not realize that the Shakur family was, like I said, not a literal, or at least how we view as a traditional family of blood relatives. And that the Shakur family was a tribe, you know, a tribe of new African leaders, even a nation, like the nation in the title of my book, like they are a nation into themselves.

and by being, you know, a Shakur meant that you were part of this nation, part of this tribe. And that's something that I did really fully comprehend or understand going into it, you know, and just how widely, how many people call themselves Shakur who are doing so out of choice and out of commitment. That was the first thing. Second thing is that surprised me was just exactly how hard and fast the state came down on so many people individuals and organizations and groups, just exactly the extent of really the repressive, you know, nature of all these different forces, like state, local, federal, anytime, like anybody started doing any working community, you know, feeding school children, providing health care to the community, like which we started doing with acupuncture in the Bronx, you know, anytime anybody sort of sort of, uh, making moves toward self-determination. It was just, the state came down.

They were so admitted to shutting this down. You know, from, you know, from the mid-60s, from the first, you know, inklings of it, from the mid-60s, onto the 60s, off of the 70s, into the 80s, just rounding up everybody, crushing movements, the sort of really horrible things that they were doing

as far as like pitting them against each other, pitting leaders against each other by fabricating documents, fabricating letters, phone calls. You know, there was, it was so callous, you know,

it was so repressive, that it was just shocking, you know, that our own government would, would resort to such brutal tactics to shut down people who were just trying to assert their right to,

you know, to survival, really, you know, just trying to assert their right to survival in this community and this world and this country, you know, it was just like, man, you know, I just, it became so, like, the more I learned about it, the more I was really researching it, it just became so disheartening. And, you know, I know, I don't want to say that the book is a, it's all like a bummer and it's all, I mean, it's more like, to me, it was inspiring that they continued, even knowing what they're up against and losing loved ones,

losing comrades, to know what they were up against, this beast of a, you know, of a state still being committed to doing it, still putting in the work, still showing up. Yeah, I was just like, okay, this is really sad to know

what they're up against, but also inspiring to know they survived. They were committed. They didn't know, you know, nobody, you know, nobody in the Shikors really betrayed anybody else. You know, they were always, they were, they were, you know, true to death, always committed, always dedicated. And that's really what made them Shikors. Yeah. Yeah. Incredibly well said. I mean, another aspect of the Cointel Pro and the hardcore clamping down authoritarian reaction by the U.S. state to any and all movements for Black liberation in particular, I mean, there's the obvious all of the disincentivizing of continuing to organize, the pitting people against each other, trying to destroy these organizations, which they were, you know, to differing degrees, pretty successful at. But one of the long-term impacts of this state repression is breaking up the continuity of these movements of these organizations such that through the 80s and especially the 90s, having sort of won that fight against these movements that arose in the 60s and 70s, The new generation of activists and organizers have to kind of rediscover everything. You have to re-learn lessons that a lot of these elders, if they hadn't been hounded by the state,

if they were able to continue their organizing, could have sort of handed down in a lineage of organizing and activism that is completely chopped up and broken, making like every generation have to relearn so many of the lessons that were learned in a previous generation. And I think a work like this is so essential because it is trying to bring back that continuity, show the activists and organizers of today that they belong to this beautiful tradition, that they can be inspired by these people that came before them. And importantly, they can learn the mistakes, the pitfalls, and the successes from these previous iterations of their movement. So as much as the state tries to destroy the continuity and destroy the history, people like

you and many others keep that history alive and continue to introduce it to a new audience and a new generation, which I think is so, so, so important. Yeah, beautifully put. I really appreciate that. I really do, and I really do believe that. I really do believe you got to know the history, you know, before anything else. You know, before you go out there in the streets and put in the work, you got to know, you got to know, you got to have examples. You got to know what came before. You got to look to, you know, got to be prepared. Yeah. And that's, yeah, it's really what's all about. So my last question is for you. This is like sort of a two-part question. What is the ultimate legacy of the Shakur family today? And what do you? And what do you? hope people, especially young people, take away from this important work? Yeah, I mean, their legacy today, I mean, it's just really what they, the biggest thing that they accomplished, and I feel like that still has resonance today, is just community work, just focus on, you know, look at, look to your media community and your community's urgent needs. And I think a lot of times, you know, we don't, I think we look at, we look

for bigger thing, bigger, bolder things. you know, marches in the street, like, things like that, when really what they were doing is community work, you know, like, how can we, you know, there's people doing that today that we don't get the same sort of fanfare or, you know, media coverage. But that's the important work, you know, whether organizing tenants or providing legal help like Afini did or health care, community health care, you know, and especially non-Western forms of health care, that's what we truly did, or with Asada, you know, just being, speaking to your people directly, you know, being like, you know, being a voice for people

who are struggling. These are the things, you know, that we today, you know, learn from. I think people do that more quietly, you know, not always like, you know, out there in front of cameras, but they do quietly. And Tupac, you know, Tupac also represents people who are sort of have that, that duality within them of being part of the movement, but also, you know, be a young person who is part of society and wants to have fun and not feeling like you have to be one of the other and you can have both of those within you. You know, there's just like, there's so much of that.

It was just like community, media, randomizing, serving the community. That's, you know, who the Shikors were about. I feel like that's, you know, their greatest contribution is just providing an example, you know, of how to best serve the community, what to look out for. And then if things come, you know,

come down on you, this is how you can survive. This is what you need to watch out for. But yeah, just giving that sort of strength and inspiration to us today. I feel like it's the strongest part, the strongest contribution. Yeah, I think that's really well said. And in a hyper individualist, especially social media entrenched society, a lot of people do do things for self-glorification. You know, they don't want to put in the actual work, but they want that cool Instagram picture at the protest. And what these people, and many more, I think of figures like Fred Hampton, but certainly Asada, Afini, et cetera, Matulu.

You know, insofar as they became public figures, it was by virtue of the work they were doing. It was never about promoting yourself first and foremost. It was always about doing the work. And the notoriety or the fame that came along with it were purely accidental and peer outgrowths of the work itself. And I think in a hyper individualized and very narcissistic culture, that lesson is incredibly important for young people. especially to keep in mind, especially as they navigate social media, which is the glorification of the ego on every level. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So thank you so much. Again, the book is an American family, the Shikors and the nation they created. I really, really encourage people to get

this book to check it out, to learn from it. It's really essential. Before I let you go, though, can you let listeners know where they can find this book and your other work online? Yeah, and the book is available, you know, I think at this point, most bookstores, you know, across the country. Also online, of course, you can buy it online and all the online booksell book retailers. I'd encourage, you know, check out your local bookstore first, see if they have it. They don't have it, ask them to order it. But barring that, it's available online. Yeah, wherever books are sold, I'm glad it.

And do you have a website for your other work generally? Yeah, all my writing, my journalism and all their work is on my website, which is just my name, santielijah holly.com. You can find links to the book, links to my writing, all that stuff on there. All right. Well, Santi, thank you so much for this wonderful work and so much for coming on our show and sharing your knowledge with my audience. I deeply, deeply appreciate it. Keep up the great work. I appreciate you. Thanks for having me. It's great. I got angels running away, I got demons hunting me, I know pop with 25, I know Jesus 33, I tell death to keep a distance, I think he obsessed with me, I say God that's the one, I know she would death on my wrist, they want a barcode on my wrist. To auction off it cares that don't fit their description of a utopia Like a problem won't exist if I just don't exist if I grew up without a single Pots of piss and pardon me, but in Congress got the nerve to call itself religious Rich just getting richer, we just trying to live our life

Mama mixed the vodka with the sprite and kill my cousin with the pocket knife while my uncle on the phone he was going for more to have my life he got out of year and then he died I was on the road talking to my father on the phone left the city when I was just for none of them would get alone mama begging hip for when the coast I was chilling when my niggas poop Now they're trying to take a slide don't mean shit To a nigger that ain't never had shit Yeah Light don't mean lit

In the dark fight don't mean fish Oh ice don't see Ice don't see Ice don't freeze Light don't leave I don't mean Light to leave Tell me it'll be okay

Tell me happy a day Tell me that she might bake Then I won't be a long Tell them I'll be okay When he acts talks my day Tell them that we the same Tell him that we're not safe you I got my granddad is old

I'm at war that's on my mind I seen Walter by the cold Wish I could switch you with mine I'm not worried about no rap shit Distractions always the times I still go to social functions Even though I'm so anti No I'm no Reinda the court gonna throw it

Like Donovan downed I've been modeling my whole career As in Park was in studio monitor shaking I raised the apartment To bondo with profit I made with the made And I lost it Amount of time the same amount of time you was watching So stop comparing me to people know I am not them

A lot of people dreaming till they shit against shit That's life Mama makes it rocking with the sprite Kill my cousin with the pocket knife I'm a unrule on the phone He was gone from all that has my life He got out of year and then he died I was on a roll

Talking to my father on a pole Left the city when I was just poor Another dimma get along Mama begging him for when the cold I was chilling with my niggas poop Now they're trying to take his life Thank you.