SDU Stencil Art Spray-paints Portrait of Dr. Shakur
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Category Archives: Honoring Dr. Shakur
National Acupuncture Detoxification Association Support for Dr. Mutulu Shakur
The National Acupuncture Detoxification (NADA) is a not-for-profit training and advocacy organization, encourages community wellness through the use of a standardized auricular acupuncture protocol for behavioral health, including addictions, mental health, and disaster & emotional trauma. This organization originated from Dr. Mutulu Shakur’s development and use of what is now known as the NADA protocol to treat heroin and methadone addiction. Thousands of healers continue to be trained through NADA to carry on this healing work in communities all over the world. Due to Dr. Shakur’s foundational role in bringing acupuncture to underserved communities in NYC, organizations such as NADA support his freedom.
Click on image above to for PDF version
Ife Jie releases ‘Stay Down’ about Dr. Mutulu Shakur
Unusual Tale of Acupuncture, Racism, and African American History in the USA
Click on the image teaser above to view the full post by Dr. Tenisha Dandridge of Everyone’s Place Acupuncture and Wellness.
‘Maroon My Love’ by Rev Love <3
Maroon My Love by @revlovemusic
Video directed by @kyjproductions
Produced by @isaacfaith718 and Rev Love for Youth Black Faith Records
Executive produced by Femmes on Film
Please download and stream the single and B-Side as all proceeds go to support Russell Maroon Shoatz and Dr. Mutulu Shakur:
iTunes – https://music.apple.com/us/album/maro…
Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/album/02GC4y…
#revolutionarylove
Historian Eana Meng on the development of the NADA protocol
Historian Eana Meng shares her excerpt about Dr. Shakur’s role in the development of the auricular 5-point NADA protocol for acupuncture detox on her blog, Of Part and Parcel. Her research is published as Patients in Pain: The Rise of Acupuncture in the Opioid Epidemics that she wrote for The Opioid Epidemic in Historical Perspective: An Anthology in the fall of 2018.
The Nehanda Abiodun Story
[Nehanda spent decades as a political exile in Cuba and passed on January 30, 2019 at her home in Havana. She is an important figure in the history of Dr. Mutulu Shakur]
Carry it on now.
Nehanda Isoke Abiodun, is a name that I am proud to have for many reasons. My first and last name were given to me by very close comrades on my 30th birthday and when Zimbabwe was fighting for its independence. Nehanda was a spiritualist revolutionary who lived in the 1800s and led the first war of liberation against the Rhodesians and I pray that I do her memory justice with my attempts to gain freedom for my people. Abiodun, means born at the time of war and for me was more than appropriate since New Afrikans (African-Americans) born in the Americas have been at war against those that have oppressed them for centuries. Isoke was a name given to me by movement Sisters in the early 1990’s here in Cuba and means a precious gift from God. I cried during the ceremony because it was a blessing to know that my efforts for our collective freedom was appreciated by my peers.
The Early Days
2018 Interview about Acupuncture & The Opioid Crisis
The opioid crisis is a hot topic this year, and a recent article in The Atlantic mentions Dr. Shakur as one of the figures who brought acupuncture treatment into the mainstream particularly as a method of detoxification from drug use. Despite conducting an 11-question written interview, the article did not feature any of his own words, and inaccurately states the reason for his incarceration. In an effort to add to what little accurate information is publicly available about the highly influential Lincoln Detox program, we are posting his full response to the questions raised by the interviewer.
1. How did you first become involved with Lincoln Detox? Who did you know who already worked there? Why did you decide to apply for a job, and why do you think they opted to hire you?
How the Young Lords Took Lincoln Hospital, Left a Health Activism Legacy
by Sessi Kuwabara Blanchard on filtermag.org
“They just took over the Nurses’ Residence at Lincoln Hospital,” says Walter Bosque, an acupuncturist and community organizer. His salt-and-pepper eyebrows are an archive.
I sat down with Bosque at the New York City Botanical Garden cafe on a brisk fall afternoon to discuss his involvement in the radical health activism of a fabled group in the history of grassroots organizing: the Young Lords.
The Puerto Rican liberation organization–founded in Chicago in 1968 and pollinated to New York in 1969–kicked off its activism around issues like failing garbage collection services, infrastructure laced with lead paint, and lethal medical services. In ‘69 and ‘70, the Lords took direct action with the Black Panthers and other allies against derelict facilities and care deficits at Lincoln Hospital–known locally as the “Butcher Shop.” It was the only medical facility in the majority Black and Latinx South Bronx.
Continue readingDr. Shakur featured in ‘Ancestors of Liberation Acupuncture’
James Shelton and Kate Kampmann from the People’s Organization of Community Acupuncture (POCA) have created a series of images honoring 7 people whose life’s work contributed greatly to what we now term Liberation Acupuncture. These are the Ancestors of Liberation Acupuncture.
Gustavo Gutierrez was born in Lima, Peru in 1928. He is an originator and leading proponent of Liberation Theology. The phrase, “a preferential option for the poor” is attributed to him. If a practice doesn’t work for the poorest people, then it doesn’t work. This ethos is foundational to Liberation Acupuncture.
Ignacio Martín-Baró was born in Spain in 1942. He worked largely in El Salvador. A proponent of Liberation Psychology, Baró was adamant that a practice had to be useful and valuable to the popular majority. One could not import a European styled psychology for a Central American peasantry with their differing experiences of imperialism and poverty. Similarly, Liberation Acupuncture must adapt the delivery of healthcare to the
needs of the underserved American people. Baró was assassinated by the US-trained El Salvadorian Army in 1989.
Master Tung Ching Chang was born in Shandong Province, China. c. 1916. He moved to Taiwan during the Chinese revolution. His family lineage of acupuncture used a very different system than what became known as Traditional Chinese Medicine. He would have been prosecuted if he had not conformed. Tung’s acupuncture makes great use of distal points, allowing him to treat 100 people in a day and making it ideal for community acupuncture. Master Tung also stepped out of his family tradition by training many outside practitioners, including Miriam Lee.
Mutulu Shakur was born in Baltimore, in 1950. Shakur became the assistant director of the Lincoln Detox, a community organized drug detoxification clinic in an occupied building at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx, which was founded in 1970 by the Black Panther Party, the Republic of New Afrika, and the Young Lords. After its closing Shakur went on to found the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America (BAAANA) as well as the Harlem Institute of Acupuncture. He sought to utilize affordable acupuncture for oppressed, underserved communities. A member of the Black Liberation Army, Shakur has been incarcerated since 1986. There is an ongoing campaign for freedom.