Dr. Mutulu Shakur is a remarkable individual who, inspired by the legacy of Malcolm X, chose the path of a revolutionary and a healer. Dr. Shakur is now being released to his family after 36 years of captivity as a political prisoner. This issue provides evidence that throughout his many years of imprisonment he continues his liberation activism by writing, mentoring, and teaching. His life and work have touched multiple generations.
We undertook this project before we had a home for it, before we had the articles written, and before Dr. Mutulu Shakur was denied his third request for compassionate release or from his third bout of COVID-19 and pneumonia while incarcerated in the Lexington KY, Federal Medical Center.
The last 70 years of resistance to white supremacy and US imperialism is crucial history to learn about and Dr. Shakur has lived and struggled every day of it from the mid 20th century to the present. Dr. Shakur has always fought for those imprisoned as a result of the struggle; we hope that this issue inspires readers to take up the demand to Free All Political Prisoners in the United States.
The articles in this issue of SOULS represent the different trajectories that Dr. Shakur’s life has traveled. He has been in the Black Freedom Movement almost all of his life. Since he was 16, he has been a dedicated worker and leader of the revolutionary nationalist movement for New Afrikan (Black) self-determination and independence. And he has been a U.S. held political prisoner for 36 years and counting. He is accused of participating in a conspiracy to commit revolutionary acts, including the freeing of captured Black freedom fighter Assata Shakur, who now lives in political asylum in Cuba.
He is a fighter for freedom, an organizer, father, friend, a doctor of acupuncture and healer, a mentor and educator. As we spoke to people who knew him—from the movements he is a part of, to the scholars who work in the field of Human Rights and International Law, to the men he did time with in prison that are no longer incarcerated, to the children that have grown up visiting him in prison visiting rooms—the details of his life, his ongoing engagement with the world despite the isolation of maximum security, and how he has lived each and every day poured out like rain.
We hope that this volume will contribute to the knowledge and study of Dr. Shakur’s life, thought, and activism for future generations. As the writings from Dr. Shakur himself show, his thinking and commitment to the struggle has not been diminished one bit by his incarceration. Rather, like others in prison, his ideas, and his range of knowledge expanded with each assault by the US government on him and on Black people, the freedom struggle, and the movement to “Free the Land” of New Afrika.
Dr. Shakur has consistently written during his incarceration. This volume includes four essays written by Dr. Shakur. The history of Shakur and his colleagues in the development of people’s medicine through the vehicle of acupuncture and revolutionary political education is documented in his essay, “The Seed: History of the Original Acupuncture Detoxification Program at Lincoln Hospital.” We are sure of interest to many audiences is Dr. Shakur’s open letter to his deceased son, the renowned hip hop artist and actor Tupac Amaru Shakur. Another essay, “Towards a Truth and Reconciliation Process for New Afrikan/Black Political Prisoners/Prisoners of War,” is Dr. Shakur’s proposed process to bring a resolution to the captivity and exile of Cointelpro-era political prisoners. Finally, “The Struggle for International Political Recognition of Black/New Afrikan Freedom Fighters” utilizes an international law framework to the status of captured militants of Black resistance movements in the United States.
We are fortunate to include two articles to contextualize Dr. Shakur’s position applying international law to captured New Afrikan freedom fighters for national liberation in the United States. Law Professor Natsu Saito contributed an analysis of Shakur’s perspective on the application of international jurisprudence to the New Afrikan liberation movement. Scholar-activist Ward Churchill continues the examination of Shakur’s prisoner of war argument comparing the Black liberation movement to the experience of the Irish resistance to British colonial rule.
This issue also contains a brief political biography from one of the issue's coeditors Dr. Akinyele Umoja. The other coeditor, Susan Rosenberg, collaborated with anti-imperialist activist and former political prisoner Linda Evans on an essay that demonstrates continued political repression against Dr. Shakur after his conviction and imprisonment in the federal prison system. Human rights advocate Rukia Lumumba contributed a passionate reflection on her father, Attorney Chokwe Lumumba and his client Mutulu Shakur. She met Shakur and attended his trial as a child. Activist educator Mshairi Siyanda also conducted an interview with men imprisoned with Dr. Shakur who discuss the revolutionary’s role in the transformation of other prisoners and bringing solidarity and consciousness “behind the walls.” Professor Asantewa Sunni-Ali offered a review of the documentary “Dope is Death,” which highlights the work of Shakur as a healer utilizing the practice of acupuncture, particularly as a vehicle for detoxification. The volume is concluded with an afterword that summarizes and provides significance from activist-scholar Robin D.G. Kelley.
We want to thank Dr. Shakur, as well as his family, comrades, legal team, and support network for their assistance in this issue and for helping fight for his release. We hope this volume inspires you to action and provides enlightenment on the history of Black resistance and struggle for self-determination. Moreover, we are thankful to Barbara Ransby, Marco Durcé Roc, Mia Silva, and the editorial team of SOULS for their professionalism and comradely support and guidance in making this project a reality.
Akinyele Umoja and Susan Rosenberg
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Akinyele Umoja
Akinyele Umoja is a Professor of Africana Studies at Georgia State University and the author of We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance and the Mississippi Freedom Movement (NYU Press, 2014). Professor Umoja is also a coeditor, with Karin Stanford and Jasmin Young, of the Black Power Encyclopedia (Greenwood Press, 2018). Professor Umoja’s scholarship is featured in several other journals and anthologies. For well over four decades, Umoja has advocated reparations, freedom of political prisoners, and solidarity of the Black Liberation movement with people across the globe fighting for human rights and freedom from oppression.
Susan Rosenberg
Susan Rosenberg is a human rights and prisoners’ rights advocate, adjunct lecturer, award-winning writer, speaker and a former political prisoner. Her memoir, An American Radical, details her 16+ years in federal prison and her conclusions about her prison experience. She was released from prison in 2001 through executive clemency by then President Bill Clinton. Susan has worked in nonprofit communications on human rights and in defense of prisoners and the abolition of prisons. She is a member of the Family and Friends of Dr. Mutulu Shakur, and involved in other political prisoner release efforts. She is an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College, in the Women and Gender studies Department. She is a former founding member of the Board of Ladies of Hope Ministries, a women and girls reentry organization. She is on the board of advisors of Alliance for Families for Justice. She is a member of the PEN prison writing committee at PEN America. She is a contributor to the revised edition of the PEN America Prisoners Writers Handbook, “The Sentences That Create Us,” published through Haymarket Books. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and continues to write.