MY CONVERSATION WITH MALCOLM X

(the following is a fictious conversation I am having in my head, interacting with the actual words spoken by Malcolm X. It is intended to motivate people to recommit themselves to the unfinished business of Malcolm X and the OAAU Basic Unity Program. I encourage everyone to take the time to reflect and answer Malcolm’s question to see where you are in your journey.)

Malcolm: If you can’t do for yourself what the white man is doing for himself, don’t say you’re equal with the white man. If you can’t set up a factory like he sets up a factory, don’t talk that old equality talk.…

ME: Understood. I won’t talk that equality talk, I’ll just start doing for self. I did set up my own business, Fitness Trucking. And I was growing about 30% of my own food during the summer and fall. Vegetables, chickens and eggs. It’s a start.

Malcolm: Who are you? You don’t know? Don’t tell me ‘Negro”. That’s nothing.

Me: I am the son of Jeremiah Nathaniel Blake Jr. and Yolanda Harris. grandson of Jeremiah Nathaniel Black Sr., son of Jacob Steven Blake, son of John Addison Blake, son of Yancey Blake, son of Jack Blake, son of George. As such, I am a New Afrikan descended from the Balanta people.

Malcolm: What were you before tha white man named you a negro?

Me: We were known as Balanta people.

Malcolm: And where were you? And what did you have? What was yours?

Me: We lived in a village called Untche. It is near a river. We were known as great swimmers and we were the best farmers in the area. We had freedom as we had no chiefs or kings over us. We had a life of freedom under natural law. We lived by the spirituality of the Great Belief.

Malcolm: What language did you speak then?

Me: Krassa

Malcolm: What was your name? It couldn’t have been Smith or Jones or Bunch or Powell. That wasn’t your name. They don’t have those kinds of names where you and I came from. No, what was your name?

Me: The alante n’dang, the Balanta elders, call me Brassa Mada, which means “He who knows how to do”. My great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was given the name “George” when he was trafficked to and enslaved in Charleston, South Carolina. I don’t know what his Balanta name was, but I like to call him Brassa Nchabra (Crocodile).

Malcolm: And why don’t you now know what your name was then? Where did it go? Where did you lose it? And how did he take it? What tongue did you speak? How did the man take your tongue?

Me: George was taken as a young boy about the age of eight, from his village in Untche. He was probably taken by Mandinka or Bijago man hunters and brought to the port of Cacheu and put on a slave ship as a prisoner of the Dum Diversas war that was launched in the name of Jesus Christ by his earthly representative Pope Nicholas V and the King of Portugual on June 18, 1452. George was sold to Joseph Blake, the great grandson of Robert Blake, Commander-In-Chief of the British Navy under Oliver Crommwell. The Negro Law of South Carolina (1740), sanctioned ethnocide against young George and on pain of violent corporeal punishment or death, George was forced to give up his culture and language in order to survive. George’s son Jack was then sold to Joseph’s son, Dempsey Blake and taken to North Carolina. By this time, George could no longer speak Krassa and Jack never learned his father’s mother-tongue. This is how we lost our language.

Malcolm: Where is your history? How did the man wipe out your history? How did the man - what did the man do to make you as dumb as you are right now?

Me: The Balanta people kept their history through oral traditions and the alante n’dang can tell the history from the 10th century to the present. I did a lot of research, including studying genetic migration data, and collected everything I could find about the Balanta people and compiled it into three volumes entitled Balanta B’urassa, My Sons! Those Who Resist Remain. I did this so that my sons would not remain dumb and would know their true history. I’ve made much of it avaialbe on the internet at my website so that other Balanta people in America will also not remain dumb.

Malclom: This is good. Very good. John Henrik Clarke and I wrote the following into the Organization of Afro- American Unity (OAAU) Basic Unity Program

                                 i.            Restoration: “In order to free ourselves from the oppression of our enslavers then, it is absolutely necessary for the Afro-American to restore communication with Africa . . . 

                               ii.            Reorientation: “ . . . We can learn much about Africa by reading informative books . .

                             iii.            Education: “ . . . The Organization of Afro-American Unity will devise original educational methods and procedures which will liberate the minds of our children . . . We will . . . encourage qualified Afro-Americans to write and publish the textbooks needed to liberate our minds . . . . educating them [our children] at home.”

 Me: Yes, I know. Your student and founder of the OAAU Canadian chapter, Dr. Y.N.Kly, wrote many books that I read after reading your autobiography and I have faithfully been following your true political philosophy and the Basic Unity Program of the OAAU.                       

Malcolm: In an interview for the Monthly Review, Vol. 16, no.1 in May 1964, I told A.B. Spellman that “The 22,000,000 so-called Negroes should be separated completely from America and should be permitted to go back home to our African homeland which is a long-range program; so the short-range program is that we must eat while we’re still here, we must have a place to sleep, we have clothes to wear, we must have better jobs, we must have better education; so that although our long-range political philosophy is to migrate back to our African homeland, our short-range program must involve that which is necessary to enable us to live a better life while we are still here.”

Me: Well, it has been 58 years since you said that. I have returned to my ancestral homeland and to facilitate the long-range program of the OAAU, I launched the Lineage Restoration Movement utilizing the new dna testing that allows us to identify our direct maternal and paternal ancestors and where they came from. I also launched the Decade of Return Initiative in Guinea Bissau to help as many people return there who so desire. We host regular tours and our next one is November 22-29, 2022.

Malcolm: Point  iv. of the OAAU Basic Unity Program concerned Economic Security. WE MUST ESTABLISH A TECHNICIAN BANK. WE MUST DO THIS SO THAT THE NEWLY INDEPENDENT NATIONS OF AFRICA CAN TURN TO US WHO ARE THEIR BROTHERS FOR THE TECHNICIANS THEY WILL NEED NOW AND IN THE FUTURE.

Me: Interestingly, the first mention of the people of Guinea Bissau in European history was made by Gomes Eannes de Azurara,, the royal chronicler of the King Don Affonso the Fifth of Portugal in his book, The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea Volume II. He mentions an attack made off the coast and says, “But our men had very great toil in the capture of those who were swimming, for they dived like cormorants, so that they could not get a hold of them.” The people of Guinea Bissau, like my great, great, great, great, great grandfather were great swimmers, some of the best in the world. Sadly, today, there are no swimming programs and very few swimming pools suitable for competition. No swimmer had ever represented Guinea Bissau in international competition. Being a former world class swimmer, having the expertise and knowing there was no one in the country to develop a national swimming program, I left the United States and have become President of the Guinea Bissau Swimming Federation and was the first swimmer in Guinea Bissau’s history to compete in the continental African Swimming Championships. This past June the Swimming Federation held the first modern swimming competition in Guinea Bissau. I am now preparing the Guinea Bissau National Team for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

Malcolm: Did you hear my “The Ballot or The Bullet” speech. I said that our next move is to take the entire civil rights struggle problem into the United Nations and let the world see that Uncle Sam is guilty of violating the human rights of 22 million Afro-Americans....So, I say in my conclusion the only way we're going to solve it -- we gotta unite in unity and harmony, and Black Nationalism is the key.

Me: Yes. I heard it. When I left Yale University, I went to the Nkrumah Washington Community Learning Center in Chicago. El Amin had begun to direct my studies towards the law. Taking me to its old location, El-Amin explained to me the history of the National Council of Black Lawyers Community College of Law and International Diplomacy where he used to work. He provided documents about its co-founders Dr. Charles Knox and Dr. Y.N. Kly, both distinguished experts in international law and diplomacy, and provided me with textbooks on the U.N. and its procedures. One book in particular would change my life the way your Autobiography had: International Law and the Black Minority in the U.S. by Dr. Y.N. Kly. Along with another of his books, The Black Book which details your program to internationalize our struggle through the Organization of Afro American Unity, I gained some clarity on what must be done and what I must do, in order to gain relief from genocide and win reparations. I thus began writing Ras Notes: Conceptualizing Our Case for the U.N. At this time, I established communication with Dr. Kly’s International Human Rights Association of American Minorities (IHRAAM) and UHRAAP. I then began researching U.N. resolutions through the internet at DePaul University, and obtaining articles, petitions, and reports from NGO’s concerning our case. From these I began drafting the Petition of the Nkrumah-Washington Community Learning Center on Behalf of their Members, Associates and Afro-American Population Whose Internationally Protected Human Rights Have Been Grossly and Systematically Violated By the Anglo-American Government of the United States of America and Its Varied Institutions. But that was back in 1996-7. Right after that, I went to the African Union just like you went to the Organization of African Unity. More recently, in 2020, however, I addressed the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent concerning the trangenerational epigenetic effects of United States slavery and ethnocide. And just last week I submitted a Statement entitled NEW AFRIKAN INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS to the upcomming 20th session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the  Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action  Geneva, Switzerland 10-21 October 2022. Now I am working with the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA) International Affairs Commission and Health Commission and one of the major focus of my work is studying the feasability of conducting a plebiscite for New Afrikan self-determination. So I hope I have shown myself approved in faithfully carrying forward your work, your legacy and the Basic Unity Program of the OAAU. And I hope that my efforts will inspire other New Afrikans to dedicate their energy, their resources and their life towards this vital Basic Unity Program. One thing they can do right now is

TAKE THE AFRODESCENDANT STEERING COMMITTEE SELF DETERMINATION SURVEY

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What Direction Reparations? - Article from the NCOBRA 33rd Annual Convention

WHAT DIRECTION REPARATIONS?

By Siphiwe Baleka

published in the NCOBRA 33rd Annual Conventions Program

There seems to be a lot of momentum in the reparations movement centered around HR40 (Black Reparations Slavery Study Bill) and the California Reparations Task Force. While many people are excited about these developments, I do not share their excitement. I am concerned that the current reparations agenda does not recognize the fundamental need to establish the conditions needed for repair. Consequently, any reparations such as payments, education programs and housing secured and applied in an environment where repair cannot take place, is a pyrrhic victory.

My father once told me, and I heard Malcolm X say this, too, that if you want to solve a problem, you must go to the origin of the problem. So we need to consider the origin of the problem that “reparations” seeks to solve.

A family was living in a specific territory. It spoke a specific language and practiced a specific culture with its own connection to the land, environment and other peoples. The family knew its place in the natural world. A member of that family was captured and trafficked across the Atlantic and placed in captivity.  He or she was then subjected to a dehumanizing process in a controlled environment for the purpose of manufacturing an artificial product called a “slave”. The manufacturing process used violence to commit ethnocide - the destruction of a person’s natural identity - and resulted in transgenerational epigenetic effects. In other words, we were severed from our ancestral lineages and transformed from being natural human beings to unnatural, artificial slave products where we lived a life of subhuman servitude to free whites for generations, sacrificing their human identity and nature for the will and desires of their owners. The resultant legacy and harm from that experience, combined with the additional legacy and harm of racism, is what we are trying to repair. The solution then, is to reverse engineer what happened to us.

Since the dehumanizing manufacturing process required removal from our own territories into places of captivity, the first reparation demand needs to be reversing the captivity by returning to our own territories. We must have autonomous territories within the United States as well as programs to return us to the specific territories our ancestors were taken from.

Since the dehumanizing manufacturing process required the use of violence and the threat of violence, reparations must result in autonomous territories where there is guaranteed peace and security. This means that United States law enforcement have no jurisdiction. We need guarantees of peace such that financial resources do not need to be wasted on a military to defend the autonomous areas and nations from attack and can be used in providing rehumanizing services.

Since the dehumanizing manufacturing process severed one from their ancestral lineage resulting in ethnocide, these ancestral lineages must be restored. Ethnocide has created an identity crisis in the African American community. Since our identities were destroyed, they must be restored and our natural, rightful place in the world reclaimed. Fortunately, genetic testing enables us to do just that.

Thus, the overall aim of reparations is the complete REHUMANIZATION of the descendants of people that were taken from the African continent and were subjected to captivity, dehumanization and subhuman service.

It should be recalled that at Emancipation, the United States government intended that there be a new, independent African nation that would allow for the process of rehumanization. This was the desire that was clearly stated by the twenty representatives of the new Black government council that met with the United States Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton and United States Army General William Tecumseh Sherman in Savannah, Georgia, January 12, 1865. Five days later Sherman issued Special Field Order 15 ceding United States territory to the newly freed African people. The United States passed legislation to make this a reality.  

I don’t see anywhere in the current reparations movement in the United States where providing the conditions for our rehumanization is discussed. There is no demand for land, autonomy and the exercise of self determination under international law.  We can not hope to repair ourselves without reverse engineering the captivity, dehumanization and subhuman service. We need an environment and conditions where we can live without the threat of violence, police, and the administration of the United States (in)justice system.  We need an environment where we don’t have to worry about where we are going to live and what we are going to eat so that we have time to focus on the work of internal reparations. The price tag for providing such environments on both sides of the Atlantic will require $25 trillion over the next 25 years.

In closing, I recall the words of Tendayi Achiume, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law and UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance:

“The project of Reparations is about undoing structures and remaking societies that were deliberately designed along logistics that reinforce racial subordination. . . . From the perspective of lawyers and legal academics and legal advocates I would say we have invested far too much time in taking advantage of strategic opportunities and THAT HAS KEPT US IN THE REFORM FRAME. And I think one of the things that has been the most powerful about the defund movement is that it has shown just the transformative power that comes from ASKING FOR YOUR IDEALS AS YOUR STARTING POINT. . . .One of the things I am trying to challenge myself to do as a law professor, for example, is to think about what it might mean to teach law school classes that are MORE ABOUT IDEALS, THAT ARE MORE ABOUT REIMAGINED SOCIETIES AND HOW WE MIGHT GET THERE RATHER THAN THE FOCUS ON LITIGATION AND PLUGGING THE HOLES OF A SYSTEM THAT IS DESIGNED TO PRODUCE INJUSTICE. . . .”


For a practical reparations plan to reverse engineer our captivity, dehumanization and subhuman service, see the Agenda for Black America’s Restoration and Self Determination -

*Siphiwe Baleka is a member of the NCOBRA International Affairs Commission and the Health Commission

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BBHAGSIA Celebrates Inaugural Dr. Mutulu Shakur Community Health Day With 4 Minute Fit Program

Today, August 8th, is the 72nd birthday of Dr. Mutulu Shakur. Unfortunately, Mutulu Shakur, an activist and holistic health care hero, has been behind bars as a New Afrikan political prisoner for more than 35 years and now, at 72, has several health issues, most notably stage-3 multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that can affect the bones and kidneys.

Shakur has endured drastic weight loss due to his illnesses and treatments; has had Covid at least twice; and has relied on IV feeding tubes on and off since May, his attorney, Brad Thomson, said. Thomson said doctors with the Federal Bureau of Prisons gave Shakur less than six months to live in May, noting that his cancer treatment had stopped working.

“At this point, the issue is getting him released so he can say goodbye to his loved ones, his family, his children, and grandchildren. To be surrounded by loved ones, so he can die in dignity, peace and comfort outside of prison.”

Shakur was diagnosed with myeloma in 2019, Thomson said, and his legal team requested his “compassionate release” in May 2020. U.S. District Judge Charles Haight Jr. in November 2020 denied Shakur’s request, holding that his crimes were too serious, and his health had not deteriorated enough to warrant release.

Today, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA} Health Commission announced that August 8th is now Dr. Mutulu Shakur Community Health Day.

N’COBRA HEALTH COMMISSION (NHC)

DR. MUTULU SHAKUR COMMUNTY HEALTH DAY AUGUST 8TH 2022 DECLARATION

* any reference to “man” is to be understood as all members of the human family

 Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family* is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, as stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Whereas it is essential, if man* is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by law as stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Whereas Member States, including the United States of America, have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Whereas everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his* country, as stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Whereas everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself *and of this family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his* control, as stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Whereas education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Whereas everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality, as stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Whereas every right heretofore mentioned – including all articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights not listed here- has been violated by the United States of America with respect to the egregious human rights violations against people of African ascent,

Whereas effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him* by the constitution or by law, is a set standard, so determined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have been denied,

Whereas the National Coalition for Reparations in American (N’COBRA) affirms the right to effective remedy known as reparations, according to all international norms,

Whereas the N’COBRA Health Commission has assumed the role to research, analyze, and organize people of good will to attend to the mission to define the rehabilitation aspect of reparations in the quest to obtain full reparations,

Whereas the N’COBRA Health Commission recognizes history and history makers as central to reconstructing the glorious account of resistance to oppression and the right to repair and the right to development,

Whereas Dr. Mutulu Shakur has assumed all of the duties known to himself, in consultation with his community, to fulfill his obligation to his community in which alone he has contributed to the free and full development of his and his peoples’ personality, to the best of his ability,

Whereas Dr. Mutulu Shakur has dedicated his life to the full enactment and enjoyment of all human rights, including those stated above, the right to self-determination, the right to health and the right of development,

Whereas Dr. Mutulu Shakur helped birth, transform and materialize the right of health self-determination through the introduction of acupressure and acupuncture to alleviate opioid addiction in the South Bronx, in response to the oppression and medical apartheid which continues today,

Whereas Dr. Mutulu Shakur pioneering work in acupuncture for opioid addiction was a precursor to the harm reduction movement and set a place forward for full recovery,  

Whereas Dr. Mutulu Shakur has provided the foundation and blueprint for the total well-being of people of African ascent, and all people of good will,

Whereas the life work of Dr. Mutulu Shakur is a significant contribution to the aims of the Durban Declaration (2001), the Decade of People of African Descent (2015-24) affirming recognition, justice and development, and the UN Permanent Forum for People of African Descent, who in other documents are referred to as AfroDescendants,

Whereas Dr. Mutulu Shakur is a pioneer public health social innovator, who is now being acknowledged, in universal recognition, for which his work merits,

Let it be now publicly known, on this day, August 8, 2022,  that the N’COBRA HEALTH COMMISSION (NHC), on his 72nd birthday, confers the honor he deserves and  declares that August 8th shall be celebrated annually as DR. MUTULU SHAKUR COMMUNTY HEALTH DAY 

WHEN OPIOD ADDICTION REACHED EMERGENCY LEVELS IN NEW YORK, DR. MUTULU SHAKUR TOOK RESPONSIBILITY AND TOOK ACTION!

Today, the major health crisis of the African American community is obesity. Like Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Siphiwe Baleka, founder of the Balanta B’urassa History & Genealogy Society in America (BBHAGSIA) and founder of Fitness Trucking and the 4 Minute Fit program, is also taking responsibility. Siphiwe Baleka was dubbed the “Fitness Guru to the Trucking Industry” for his revolutionary weight loss program designed for america’s most obese workers: truck drivers. Baleka’s program was a huge success and outperformed Weight Watchers in helping clients lose weight and reduce their risk for sixty medical disorder and twelve cancers. Baleka was even featured in Men’s Health, Sports Illustrated, and Good Morning America.

Now, Siphiwe Baleka is bringing his 4 Minute Fit program to NCOBRA, in the spirit of Dr. Mutulu Shakur, to help African American’s win the War Against Obesity. Click the links below for 4 Minute Fit vidoes and podcasts.

Prison doctors have given Mutulu Shakur, activist and Tupac Shakur’s stepfather, up to six months to live, according to his attorney

July 21, 2022

By Char Adams

Organizers have launched a movement to release Tupac Shakur’s stepfather from a decadeslong prison sentence as he faces a rare form of blood cancer that his doctors say is incurable.

Mutulu Shakur, an activist and holistic health care advocate, has been behind bars for more than 35 years and now, at 71, has several health issues, most notably stage-3 multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that can affect the bones and kidneys.

Shakur has endured drastic weight loss due to his illnesses and treatments; has had Covid at least twice; and has relied on IV feeding tubes on and off since May, his attorney, Brad Thomson, said. Thomson said doctors with the Federal Bureau of Prisons gave Shakur less than six months to live in May, noting that his cancer treatment had stopped working.

“His health situation is extremely dire right now. He’s very much on an end-of-life trajectory. We’re looking at a matter of months at the most but, realistically, it could be a matter of days or weeks,” Thomson told NBC News. “At this point, the issue is getting him released so he can say goodbye to his loved ones, his family, his children, and grandchildren. To be surrounded by loved ones, so he can die in dignity, peace and comfort outside of prison.”

Shakur was diagnosed with myeloma in 2019, Thomson said, and his legal team requested his “compassionate release” in May 2020. U.S. District Judge Charles Haight Jr. in November 2020 denied Shakur’s request, holding that his crimes were too serious, and his health had not deteriorated enough to warrant release.

“Should it develop that Shakur’s condition deteriorates further, to the point of approaching death, he may apply again to the Court, for a release that in those circumstances could be justified as ‘compassionate,’” Haight said in the ruling obtained by NBC News.

A spokesperson for Haight, who also presided over the 1988 case that landed Shakur in jail for bank robbery and other crimes, told NBC News that a new request for Shakur’s release is pending and the judge is waiting for guidance from the U.S. attorney’s office before making a decision. Shakur is being held at a federal medical center in Lexington, a prison in Kentucky for incarcerated people who require care.

Shakur is serving a 60-year sentence stemming from a 1988 conviction for conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO Act, bank robbery, armed bank robbery and bank robbery murder. He was convicted of leading a group of revolutionaries in a string of armed robberies in New York and Connecticut, including one that left three people dead. He was also convicted of helping JoAnne Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, escape from a New Jersey prison in 1979, according to The Associated Press and Thomson.

However, Shakur and his supporters say that the acts were political, not criminal, in nature. Jomo Muhammad, an organizer with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement working to free Shakur, as well as Shakur’s friends and family, said his incarceration is linked to his Black liberation efforts and his work with revolutionary Black nationalist groups in the 1960s, including the Revolutionary Action Movement and the Republic of New Afrika.

Muhammad said Shakur is being used as an example because of his activism. At the time of his 1986 arrest he was doing his own independent investigation of COINTELPRO, an FBI campaign to discredit radical groups including Black liberation movements that were deemed illegal, Muhammad said.

“Fifty years later, the United States government continues to hold a grudge,” Muhammad said. “You can make the argument that he is, in fact, a political prisoner.”

Along with being a respected activist, Shakur is called a “doctor” among his family and supporters. He is praised for his work bringing holistic health care to Black communities in the Bronx in the 1970s. He informally studied acupuncture and joined with several other activists, in groups like the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, to take over part of Bronx’s Lincoln Hospital and run the Lincoln Detox Center, a community center that used acupuncture to address drug dependence and provided political education that produced several community activists, according to The Washington Post.

A group of faith leaders and Shakur’s supporters gathered on Wednesday in front of the U.S. Department of Justice in a rally urging the U.S. Parole Commission, Bureau of Prisons, and Justice Department to free Shakur. Supporters said at the rally that Shakur is confined to a wheelchair and his brain function has deteriorated so much that he barely recognized his son during a visit two months ago.

“They claim he is a danger to public safety, a danger to society, and that he has the capacity to influence people. They don’t speak to the fact that he is a 71-year-old elder. They don’t speak to the fact that he has been incarcerated for 36 years,” Nkechi Taifa, founder of the Taifa Group, a social justice-centered consulting firm, said of the federal agencies.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on Shakur’s health, but said in an emailed statement: “The BOP has no direct authority to grant a reduction in an inmate’s sentence as a compassionate release measure. At all times, the decision on whether to grant such a motion — whether brought on behalf of the Director of the BOP, or the inmate themselves — lies with the sentencing court.” The spokesperson added that the bureau can recommend a person’s release. They have not done so for Shakur.

Shakur has been denied release several times over the years, Thomson said, though because of “various time credits,” he is set for mandatory release in December 2024. But Thomson, doctors and Shakur’s supporters say it’s unlikely he’ll live that long. Shakur was eligible for release in a 2016 mandatory parole hearing but was denied.

Thomson said that Haight’s assertion that the severity of Shakur’s crimes are what has delayed his release should not hold water because Shakur’s co-defendant Marilyn Buck, who was convicted of the same charges, was granted compassionate release in July 2010. She died of uterine cancer just weeks later.

“That’s exactly the situation that Dr. Shakur is facing now. We’re asking for that same relief,” Thomson said. “Everyone who was charged in that conspiracy, and overlapping conspiracies, all of those people have been released from federal custody.”

Shakur’s latest request for release is expected to see a resolution in the coming weeks. Although they are hopeful, Muhammad said he and Shakur’s advocates would be devastated if Shakur dies in prison.

“This is a clear injustice. Regardless of what he’s done in the past, which he’s taken responsibility for, he should be free,” Muhammad said. “We will continue to fight. There’s a lot of justice that needs to happen. A lot of freeing and healing of people, which is what Doc’s work was about. We would mourn our beloved elder and we’d do what he instructed us to do, which is to carry on straight ahead.”

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