Less than a year after his release from prison, former Black Liberation Army member Dr. Mutulu Shakur has died. He was 72.
Mutulu Shakur was a former member of the Black Liberation Army, sentenced to sixty years in prison for his involvement in a 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored truck in which a guard and two police officers were murdered.
During the late sixties, Dr. Shakur was politically active and worked with the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), a Black Nationalist group that struggled for Black self-determination and socialist change in America. He was a member of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, which endorsed the founding of an independent New Afrikan (Black) Republic and the establishment of an independent Black state in the southern U.S. Dr. Shakur also worked very closely with the Black Panther Party, supporting Lumumba and Zayd Shakur.
In 1970, Shakur began working with the Lincoln Detox program, which offered drug rehabilitation to heroin addiction using acupuncture. Eventually he became the program’s assistant director and remained associated with the program until 1978. He went on to help found and direct the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America (BAAANA) and the Harlem Institute of Acupuncture.
Shakur was convicted of racketeering conspiracy charges alongside several Black liberationists and leftist allies for his involvement in the 1981 robbery of an armored truck during which a guard and two police officers were killed. He was also convicted for aiding in the prison escape of Assata Shakur.
In their joint announcement, the New Afrikan People’s Organization and Malcolm X Grassroots Movement paid homage to Shakur, a member of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika and the Black Liberation Army.
“Dr. Mutulu Shakur’s life was transformative to the many people he organized, healed, mentored and inspired,” their statement read. “He taught us that ‘people struggle for liberation because they love the people.’ He will always be remembered for his commitment to an independent and socialist New Afrika and for his battle cry, ‘Straight Ahead!’”
Shakur’s release during the latter part of 2022 culminated a years-long campaign spearheaded by a litany of grassroots organizers including the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the Rev. Graylan Hagler, Attorney Nkechi Taifa and acupuncturist Kokayi Patterson.
Last July, organizers stood in front of the U.S. Department of Justice in demand of Shakur’s early compassionate release. Around that time, Shakur, a wheelchair user, weighed less than 130 pounds. Though he overcame COVID-19 three times, Shakur was still battling stage three bone marrow cancer, hypertension, type 2 Diabetes, and glaucoma.
Even so, Charles Haight, Jr., the same person who doled out Shakur’s 60-year prison-sentence, denied Shakur’s early compassionate release. All the while, organizers had been raising funds for what they hoped would be Shakur’s release. Once out of prison, Shakur spent his last months with family and comrades in Southern California.