Category Archives: Honoring Dr. Shakur

Mumia Abu-Jamal calls on the people to ‘Support Dr. Mutulu Shakur’

Today, Dr. Mutulu Shakur is free. But after decades in federal prisons, he now needs your help to pull his life together. Support Dr. Mutulu Shakur. For more information, go to mutulushakur.com.

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Listen to the recording of Mumia reading his full May 1, 2023 statement supporting Dr. Shakur at Prison Radio. Like Mutulu, Mumia is a Black liberation elder with severe health issues who has been subject to unjust prison conditions for far too long. Join in on the campaign to Bring Mumia Home!

Souls Journal on Mutulu Shakur Released Online

For a limited time, the full text of the Souls Journal volume on Mutulu Shakur (“Free the Land, Free the People: The Political Significance of Dr. Shakur’s Legacy) is available online. Print copies will be available soon and stay tuned for seminars and events in the coming months!

Table of Contents:

Guest Editors’ Note by Akinyele Umoja & Susan Rosenberg

Straight Ahead: The Life of Resistance of Dr. Mutulu Shakur by Akinyele Umoja

The Seed: History of the Original Acupuncture Detoxification Program at Lincoln Hospital by Mutulu Shakur & Urayoana Trinidad

The Struggle for International Political Recognition for New Afrikan/Black Freedom Fighters by Mutulu Shakur

Toward a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for New African/Black Political Prisoners, Prisoners of War and Freedom Fighters by Mutulu Shakur

To My Son Tupac by Mutulu Shakur

Revolutionary Doctor, Revolutionary Lawyer by Rukia Lumumba

Who Is a Prisoner of War? Mutulu Shakur and the Struggle for Black Liberation by Natsu Taylor Saito

COINTELPRO Continues: Dr. Mutulu Shakur by Susan Rosenberg & Linda Evans

“Non-Recognition of the Law Does Not Invalidate It”: The Status of BLA and Provisional IRA Prisoners by Ward Churchill

Interview with Formerly Incarcerated Men about Dr. Shakur’s Impact by J. Jondhi Harrell, Cedric Lines, Leo Sullivan & Mshairi Siyanda

Dr. Mutulu Shakur and the Holistic Healing of Acupuncture and Political Education: A Review of Dope is Death by Asantewa Sunni-Ali

Afterword

Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America is Back in Operation

The Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America was formed by Dr. Mutulu Shakur in 1979 to foster interest in acupuncture by encouraging research and educational programs and to disseminate information about the practice and application of acupuncture, including but not limited to the use of acupuncture in the treatment of drug abuse.

For more information on how to join and support this important organization, see baaana.com.

Harlem detox clinic featured in ‘Dope is Death’ continues to grow

New York Harm Reduction Educators (NYHRE) is the name of the Harlem-based detox clinic prominently featured as a modern-day extension of the work of Dr. Shakur in the documentary ‘Dope is Death.’

A photo wall at NYHRE features clippings of prominent figures in the development of detox acupuncture, including Dr. Shakur.

Back in May, NYHRE held an outreach event ‘Wellness in the Park’ in Marcus Garvey park. In addition to providing auricular acupuncture, there was drumming, singing, smudging and qi gong.

Juan Cortez practices Qi Gong at Wellness in the Park event

NYHRE and Washington Heights Corner Project (WHCP) just announced their merger and will continue their lifesaving harm reduction work as OnPoint NYC.

In addition to supervised consumption centers in East Harlem and Washington Heights, OnPoint NYC’s staff of 120 people provides wraparound services to meet its underserved participant’s comprehensive set of needs including, medical and mental health care, onsite access to Buprenorphine and other addiction treatment options, Hepatitis C and HIV testing and treatment, holistic services, hygiene and respite, food, clothing and other critical supports.

Tune In to What’s Happening on WBAI Radio this Wednesday 11/16

TOPIC: Why we call prisons death camps

GUESTS: Verbena, Detroit Shakur Squad

Jihad Abdulmumit, Chairperson of the National Jericho Movement

Kazi Toure, Chairperson Boston Jericho Movement

Gil Obler, NYC – Free Mumia Coalition

Tune In This Wednesday!… Streaming & Archived on wbai.org.

WBAI 99.5 fm​​ NYC

Wednesday, November 16 @ 8 pm ET

📞 Live On Air Call In (212) 209- 2877

The Final Straw Radio Interview w/ Watani Tyehimba about Dr. Shakur

Watani Tyehimba of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and a supporter and comrade of New Afrikan political prisoner Dr. Mutulu Shakur speaking about Dr. Shakur’s life, activism and the struggle for his release since he’s been diagnosed with serious bone cancer.

Listen to the episode or download the transcript on The Final Straw Radio website.

Sacrifice: Dr. Mutulu Shakur – Mini-Series in Production

We are pleased to announce there is a new mini series about Dr. Mutulu Shakur in production– Sacrifice. Spearheaded by his con, Talib Shakur, the series features stories told by the men who were incarcerated, mentored and inspired by Dr. Shakur. Contact us for more information on how to be featured in the documentary or how to support this project on the unparalleled impact and positive work of Dr. Shakur.

‘Juneteenth and Black Liberation’ by Nebil Husayn

Our government’s history of oppression compels us to free those Black revolutionaries aging in our prisons

Published on July 15, 2022 on Inquest: A Decarceral Brainstorm by the Institute to End Mass Incerceration

This was only the second year that Americans celebrated Juneteenth as a federal holiday. This day of remembrance, and our nation’s oldest African American holiday, recognizes the fundamental reality that citizens can be unjustly barred from rights afforded to them by their government for years. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which reached Texas more than two years after its signing, was followed by the 13th Amendment, which made human enslavement unconstitutional “except as a punishment for crime.” As it is well documented, this exception incentivized the targeted incarceration of Black men for labor, perpetuated slavery, and served white communities that upheld myths about Black criminality.

Icons of abolition and racial justice such as Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela lived in eras where their activism and acts of civil disobedience on behalf of other Black lives were considered unlawful and worthy of imprisonment. Yet the history of repression and oppression surrounding their actions greatly mitigates and helps explain them.

In their lifetimes, both Malcolm X and Dr. King were considered radical Black leaders and agitators who divided the nation with their critiques of American culture and society. It is in studying the history of these Black activists accused by their peers of radicalism that we can see the ways in which many were villainized and gradually written out of narratives of Black history. Public school students do not commonly learn about the Stono slave rebellion, the insurrection of Nat Turner, the contributions of Malcolm X, or the most famous revolutionary movement to uplift Black communities with a national network of social welfare initiatives — the Black Panther Party. 

Founded in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was a grassroots Marxist-Leninist organization that urged members to challenge the endemic pattern of police brutality and false imprisonment of Black people in Oakland, California, with armed patrols. Under its longtime director J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI considered Pan-African and Black nationalist movements such as the Panthers threats to national security, and many were subjected to unlawful surveillance, intimidation, incarceration, and assault. The highest-profile targets of this coordinated assault were the leaders and members of the Black Panther Party. The urgency with which the party demanded an immediate end to police brutality as part of its Ten Point Program was not a sentiment shared by most Americans until, perhaps, 54 years later — when video footage captured the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

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