Afeni Shakur was indicted on April 2, 1969, and acquitted on May 13, 1971, of all 156 charges in what was then the longest political trial in New York’s history and the most expensive.
By Ife BJ
In 1969, 21 members of the New York State Chapter of the Black Panther Party, including Afeni Shakur, Tupac Shakur’s mother, were indicted on unfounded charges of violent acts and conspiracies. This was an attempt to dismantle the New York State Chapter, those charged were part of the leadership including Afeni Shakur.
Tupac and Afeni Shakur
Afeni represented herself in court without a law degree and while pregnant, facing a 300-year sentence. The others told her not to do this. She responded, “I am facing 300 years in jail. I am not letting some lawyer who doesn’t have a nickel in this quarter represent me.”
She interviewed witnesses and argued in court, even cross-examining Ralph White, an undercover agent, one of three. White was someone whom she had suspected all along of being a cop since he had been inciting others to violence. She got White to admit under oath that he and the other two agents had organized most of the unlawful activities.
She also got White to admit to the court that the activism that they had done together was “powerful, inspiring, and … beautiful”. Shakur asked Mr. White if he had misrepresented the Panthers to his police bosses. He said “Yes”. She asked if he had betrayed the community. He said “Yes.”
She and the others in the “Panther 21” case were acquitted in May 1971 after an eight-month trial. Altogether, Afeni Shakur spent two years in jail before being acquitted. At the age of 24, her son, Lesane Parish Crooks, was born on June 16, 1971. The following year, in 1972, Lesane Parish was renamed Tupac Amaru Shakur, which means “shining serpent” in Quechua.
Tupac was named after Túpac Amaru II, an Indigenous insurgent leader of the Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II, a rebellion of the Inca against the Spanish in Peru that lasted from 1780 to 1783.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellion_of_T%C3%BApac_Amaru_II
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