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Tupac

Born: June 16, 1971
Physical Departure: September 13,1996
Tupac Amaru was named after an Inca Chief, it's meaning is shining serpent. Tupac
Amaru Shakur grew up around many influential leaders of the Black Panther Party.
His mother, born Alice Faye Williams, who later changed her name to Afeni Shakur,
was a section leader in the Black Panther Party. The Black Panther Party spurn from
a movement to re-open the New York Public Schools, feed school kids breakfast and
gain equal civil rights for African Americans.
Tupac was born on June 16, 1971, one month prior to his birth, a pregnant Afeni had
just defended herself in court and been acquitted of 156 counts charged against her
and other members of the Black Panther Party-called the Panther 21. Living in the
Bronx, she found steady work as a paralegal and raised her son to respect the value
of obtaining knowledge.
From childhood, everyone called him the "Black Prince." For misbehaving, he had to
read an entire edition of The New York Times. When he was two, his sister, Sekyiwa,
was born. Her father, Mutulu, was a Black Panther who, a few months before her birth,
had been sentenced to sixty years for a fatal armored car robbery and had to leave
the family.
Mutulu went away, the family experienced hard times. No matter where they movedthe
Bronx, Harlem, with family-Tupac was distressed. "I remember crying all the time.
My major thing growing up was I couldn't fit in. Because I was grew up everywhere. I
didn't have any buddies that I grew up with."
As time passed, the issue of his father tormented him. He felt "unmanly," he said.
Then his cousins started saying he had an effeminate face. "I don't know. I just didn't
feel hard."

The loneliness began to wear on him. He retreated into writing love songs and poetry.
"I remember I had a book like a diary. And in that book I said I was going to be
famous." He wanted to be an actor. Acting was an escape from the reality of life. He
was good at it,...