Atlantic, the guardian, the new republic, the washington post, Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. He lives in los angeles please join me in giving him a huge round of applause while he comes out and it reads and talks about his book. [applause] thanks allie. Thanks for coming out of retirement for this event. [laughter] thank you all for being here but think to skylight for having me. I moved to l. A. A little over a year a ago people told me it rit away this is the bookstore youve got to come too. So here i am. Thanks for being here with me. I think what i am going to do is read an excerpt from the first chapter of the opening of the first chapter which is the first part i wrote for this book it was sort of the scene that sets the stage for the rest of the book. Im going to read a short excerpt from that and then im going to talk a little bit about the book itself the themes behind thend book, how i came to write it. Why i wanted to write it. Then i will read another short excerpt, i promise theyre very short they will have audience q and a. So American Family and the nation they created, just came out on tuesday its hot off the press. This is the opening of chapter one called the trial. The earlyrs Morning Hours of apk city policeof department bureauf special services and investigations arrives at the door of apartment 9112 west 17th street in harlem. Accompanied by four additional officers armed with two bulletproof vests and one shotgun. The detectives command the men let a rag on fire in the apartments hallway and started shouting fire, fire the two apartment nine and his wife wake to the cries and smell smoke. Jumps up, looks the doors peoples and sees the flames. When he opens doors greeted by a shotgun pressed into his chest while other officer stationed outside of the fire escape enter through the winter and hold her at gunpoint. 1 mile away that same morning isapprehended from his apartment robert is taken into custody on east eighth street and afe few blocks away detective joseph copy accompanied by his own o team kicks open the door all the gun to his head and declares i have got to shoot you y black if you move i will blow your brains out. Before the sun rises in new york city 10 members of the harlem chapter of the black Panther Party arrested and jailed 17 Old High School student Jamaal JosephBrooks CommitteeCollege Nursing student. Other suspects computer Analyst Research chemist Curtis Powell, and 17 Old High School students. Or later apprehended or surrendered. Suspects Richard Harris are already in a newark jail on earlier bank robbery charges. The three remaining suspects managed to get a weight disappearing from sight. From the rated homes to nypd special Services Teams 5 30 eight caliber pistols to military rifles, three shotguns a pair of handcuffs, items that sickabuses how made explosives t map of bronx railroad stations a copy of the urban guerrilla warfare manual. Written by black panther guerrilla team. Twentyone members the black Panther Party are indicted on conspiracy to shoot Police Officers involved police stations Railroad Tracks and at Department Stores at near Botanical Garden in the bronx offended status too ill to stand trial due to his chronic epilepsy to the members already held in new jersey and other charges in three escapees. 13 ultimately stand trial. The case is formally recorded as the people of the state of new york versus. The defendants have internationally known as the panther 21. The ensuing trial will show the world forat the first time how desperate american Law Enforcement is to eliminate the panthers and to make them an example of what happened some black people in america dare to assert their rights to selfdefense and selfdetermination. This is a quote you. This has been a systematic plan by the fascist paces site for e black liberation struggle in new york city. He wrote from jail. Now i rose the panther 21ar arrt is all part and parcel the National Conspiracy by the American Government to destroy the black Panther Party and all of the revolutionaries. That is just the opening goes on to detail the trial which was the longest trial in new york state history at that point and the most expensive at that point. Aithe defendants were in jail fr two years and are awaiting trial. There ultimately acquitted of all charges but it was a Pivotal Moment for the black Panther Party and the families themselves. L, i will talk a little bit about what the black Liberation Movement is itself. It sort of grew out of the black Power Movement whichch itself gw out of disillusionment with the civil rights movements. People were sort of becoming jaded by incrementalism these sort of nonviolent tactics of the civil rights movements. Sogh the black Power Movement ce about through that people demanded more immediate direct action. Actions that have a tangible result rather than waiting for something to happen that was never seemingly happening. The black liberation is a large umbrella which covers black Panther Party smaller organizations like the black tiLiberation Army, republic of w africa ram, theres lots of different movements and organizations that grew out of this time which is mid 60s and onto the 70s. The family themselves or part of this movement. Very integral very inspirational leaders beginning with the patriarch who you took the name his birth name or his slave name was james coston senior. He was an acolyte a socialite at a malcolm x was assassinated in 1965 people were considered like their hero. Theyey were left to drift they d not know where togo go. How to carry on the move but he was advocating. That is for the black Panther Party comes intoor formation. James became he changed hisku ne after he converted to islam. The kid y in new york they are l in new york city. He had two sons his oldest son and the second oldest son change their names. That is really where the family got their start. The, name roughly translates fm arabic into thankful where the thankful. When he took a name and his sons took a name they were announcing their commitments not just islam but to carry on the struggle malcolm g x had gotten started r had been talking about picking up the pieces he left behind. In 2020. It seems like every day there was something new happening just daily protest, daily struggles just these clashes these uprisings across the country. It is worth noting today is the anniversary today is the same day three years ago georgia floyd wasnt killed which i wantd to note because a lot of what happens today can be traced. Their art reverberations from whats happening in the 60s obviously. People are looking for a t way o express their outrage like we were in 2020 and we still are. I feel like we have this outrage and confusion we did not know channel it so we are running on a wild in the streets we need it somewhere to express ourge rage. And i come at this point are starting to look at historical figures. Or just leaders. Obviously a lot of peoples days are revisiting his lyrics and realizing how forward thinking he was. In his lyrics. And now we are starting to look where he came from. He did not just come from nowhere praise knowledge about black liberation struggle he grew up in that he was raised, he was cultivated by this community. Very Strong Community supportive intelligent, inspirational but had a faced a lot of trials in their lives. So we knew that growing up in channel but into his music and his art. I was looking and listening to him again i was looking at his lyrics like what is up with his family . Nobody else is talking about these things. Nobody is talking about class struggle and Police Brutality in the way that he was intimately familiar with it. I learned a little bit more about his mother was a former black panther. A lot of the fans will he ever knew was dear mama her struggles with drug addiction. Thats all we really knew for the most part. But then i started looking into who she was. I heard she was a very important person in the 60s. Though i looked at her and her history its crazy. She was really an important person. Who else in the family . Who . Else hes dropping names in his song if you listen to his songs closely the stepfather he shouts them out in his lyrics. So as they got older and started working as a writer and a journalist i wanted to explore this history more. Was writing a little bit more about social justicece issues ad protests looking for examples and stories to share that provides us with social context but wee are going through today. Iyo learned it was the stepfathr andd what he did he was not a black panther because the black Liberation Movement and republicans of africa it is very influential leader in his own rights. I started trying to put these threads together. I was trying to learn more for myself who are all these people . What is his family about . I couldof not find anything definitive in the sort of history as shest tells the story everything online. Everything that a been published before is very contradictory, incomplete things that are in accurate. What is the true story what is going on . I want to know about this family i kept coming up against dead ends. I was trying to learn the true story behind this family. At that point i was like i guess ive got to write the book. Which was not that easy you dont just call them up for it let me look them up online and look up their facebook and send a message and say you want to talk to me . You dont know who i am. And then it would be like a lot of patience and trust a lot of people trusted me to have this idea for the book i really wanted to tell the story honestlyly i wouldnt tilt not just a story about the family is familiesnot just a family biogrr genealogy it is a historical historical storywh about what ts family the people they work with the people they fought with what they went through. What they sacrificed the things thrown against them. The things they survived ultimately. And i honestly did not know advise going to pull it off for a long time because a lot of people had sacrificed so much had been incarcerated, lost loved ones and they understand they would not be so willing and excited to talk to some random guy and writing up with a book about a family. When i introduced myself this is how i want to approach it this is who i am i feel like the story is very important to be told and has never been told thoroughly. A lot of folks, a lot of veterans came around. Other times i would just be one person and we would talk for a couple hours, a few hours and then they would say okay i will put in a word for you. Like who else are you trying to talk to . And i was like i would love to talk to this person and that person we call them up as if they want to talk. It was over many years over two years of persistence and just believing if i had a chance toy, introduce myself and talk to them and say i want to share your stories. I am not trying to come at it from a particular angle i just want to share your stories theres a lot of firsthand testimony theres ate lot of quotes. Talk to a lot of people came up and worked with them, who fought with them. There is somebody in the audience here i am really honored that she is here. It wasus a labor of love and dedication and wanting to feel like the stories need to be shared and i want to let my voice what they are stories to come forward and i hope i did. So with the book begins in the 1960s with the trial it opens with the trial goes back a little bit to malcolm x and the shift from civil rights to black power and the black panthers to the black Liberation Army which is a more Clandestine Organization that worked underground. And how it was a child of that and he was raisedn in that he s raised in the movement and how he felt like he wanted to carry that on. He got wrapped up in the industry. Some people grew up in poverty like homeless at times, hungry many times. Really committed to the struggle wanting to continue his family tradition. But also was a young man and not throwing money at him throwing themselves at him. And he was conflicted i want to honor my family and the struggle but ive also got to get paled i like having the attention i like being a movie star beta movie with janet jackson. We try to reconcile the two sides it and they are always within them. I dont know. Im really happy with how it turned out for its only been out for couple. Days but ive heard back from some people whove been really supportive of it. I am pleased and honored that he had the opportunity to tell the story. I do want to talk about the title for minutes. It is something i have been asked before it is an important question. The title is an American Family with a k. The reason why i titled it that because i would say a lot of people in the movement in this particular family and people they were surrounded by would not call themselves americans called himself a new african with a k. Its really important to say they are a pair of the new african independence movement. But my argument might reasons for titling an American Family with air k or so the cayenne american has been used since the 1970s by imperialist, antiracist individuals activists who want to make a connection in between this countries racist history and tie it to the ku klux klan and say there is no separation between history and sothis country and clan behavio. A lot of times people in this movement will write america with a k or 3ks just to condemn the country itself. But also feel like this family and people who they worked with in their different organizations are product of this country the product of the racism. The repression that they face that come about to challenge that. They coalesced to challenge the system for they are a product of this country. As much of the country is a product of other dissidents like them but we celebrate our rebels and our Freedom Fighters in this country. This a part of the country since the beginning. To call yourself an american to be proud is to celebrate rebellion and dissidents and fighting againstst oppression. They are in American Family there are product of this country is much as this country is a product of people who are also fighting for freedom. So i think it may be i will read a little from the end of the introduction. Because it is not before i do this. Course. To call this because cause a family is. Yet to think outside of what we think of about as traditional family, like blood relatives, you know, like youre born into the family youre not necessarily born a shakur to take the name shakur as an honor. Its saying that you aligning yourself with, this family in the yourself with this family and the movement. You dont take it lightly. Some people would call themselves shakur. It was a ceremony. The next day you were committed to the family, committed to the improvement of black people in the country, and not everybody we think of as shakur was born shakur. In the movement they changed their name but theres also people who dont call themselves shakurs who didnt take the name who are stillll part of the family. They stillny are shakur. I would say they are shakurs. Soke somebody like a brilliat thinker and writer living in exile in cuba since 1980. She is a shakur by honoring the name. She took the name later in life after she was already on the run after she was already wanted by authorities and after her good friend was killed by new jersey Police Officers on the turnpike in 1973, she took the name to honor her friend and to carry on what other family members named legacy. Tupac also wasnt born a shakur. He was given a different name at birth, but his mother gave him the name shakur shortly after and he carried the name with him the rest of his life so the introduction. The legacy of the shakur family exists around us in culture, activism and professional lives. When we listen to the work who o express both compassion and animosity, love and indifference, social n consciousness and nihilism, we hear tupacs influence. When you read the words of black poets and authors that speak to the experience while also yearning for home and family, we are relating to his father. We need to represent ourselves with her in the courtroom or the bedroom we are following in the path set forward. When we seek alternative holistic and nonwestern forms of medical treatment, we are benefiting from the groundwork. The shakurs helped to magnify thebl beauty and possibility of being black in america. They were a catalyst of black creativity, recovering and above all the resistance from above ground, Community Organizing to clandestine struggle wherever theres a fight against persecution, shakurs were at the forefront. They thought noble battles and won important victories. Theysu also made critical errors and suffered devastated losses and theyve been connecting to acts of violence inol response o the violence perpetrated. But through it all they never wavered in their commitment to the liberation of black people in america. The legacy to kenosha and minneapolis and coast to coast and we hear the influence on todays top Musical Artists from beyonce to kendrick lamar. America haso a long way to go before it can honestly say its granted equal protection in the law or that of blacke americans are afforded the same rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happyness like whitees american. Until that day comes and receive justice for hundreds of years of persecution in america will not know peace. This is the nation shakurs created. [applause] so, we are going to enter into the audience question portion of the evening. I have a special microphone. If you dont want to be on cspan booktv, dont ask a the question because this is their thing. Im wondering if you can talk about your choice to write in the present tense and do you do that throughout the book . The opening chapter, the opening scene is the opening scene. It wasnt always that way. After the opening scene it goes right into the action. Then we go back b a little bit n time to bring us to the scene and that is when i go back to past tense, so opening scene in the present tense. Do you remember the moment where the feeling that drove your interest in taking this from peeking your curiosity and learning more to wanting to take it to the page and really dig deeper . My interest in going beyond my initial interest to want to spend the next two andk a half years on the book was realizing the story hadnt been told completely. Anything i write about as a journalist or an offer i have to nbe interest and believe in it and so my initial interest in the subject and the story i just kept wanting more. I need to knowre more of this history, more of the story. I wasnt finding it. Like ive got to be the one to do it. I wrote a sort of outline. I didnt know. I hadnt really done any research or talked to anybody beforere that point but i was trying to learn what i could so i wrote a proposal and thought i had something here. I sent it to my agent and editor. I feel like if you grow up in this country right in the 70s, 80se and 90s, the talk of the black panthers were a terrorist group. If you hear anything about them thats what you hear. If you entered this book having preconceived notions were if you were fully aware of the spectrum of what they did in america. Great question. My knowledge prior to working in the book, its the images we see with the black berets those are the images a lot of w us see. They are doing something cool and holding shotguns. They know about the breakfast program, a little bit about that. I didnt know until we were going into the book how the panthers nationwide they were not just in the bay area. When they started the party inn selfdefense, i dont think they had any idea that it would spread across the country. About with that sort of decentralization, when we learned in this case there were literally fatal differences between east coast and west coast a few years later, but the east coast panthers in new york which is what the family were a part of had different ideas of what it meant to be a panther. And they came to heads with a lot. The biggest thing i learned about the black Panther Party researching this book that i did not know before was how much there was,d how much and a lot ofas it was fueled by the fbi. J edgar hoover was actively trying to destroy the movement and destroy the panthers with secret agents, sending phony letters to different panther leaders andun insulting them, undercover cops, this and of that. So they had the fbi actively trying to destroy them, but they were also fighting amongst each other. That was it, heartbreaking to s. They had a Great Organization that could have done so much he had dated do so much at the beginning but it became fractured over time because of the various forces. One thing i was curious about in writing your book you saw that there was a lot of tension within the black Panther Movement and all these other different groups. Where the people you were speaking with trying to guide you in one direction or another you cant mention them or talk about them or these guysuy were bad with these guys were good . Didth you find even now in your research of the book that different folks were trying to drive you Different Directions were that there was still animosity lacks what was the experience like in having to pull things out from different people . Thats a great question. The people i spoke to did not try to guide me in that particular direction. I feel like they all recognized just how much they had survived and the trauma and there isnt really any need tose impress upn what theyts survived because the facts are out there and i know this history pretty well. I would say what youve been through. Theres a little bit of you already know what we faced so i dont need to tell you anything new. I dontt think anybody shied ay from really saying we are up against a system. Didnt know what we were up against. There was a lot off idealistic intention behind what they were doing but at this point a lot are older now and to look back at the times we messed up here and there and were up against something strong we couldnt take down ourselves. Everybody i spoke to at least did admit that there were mistakes made and things that could have been done better with more intention but to the benefit of having years behind you and older age and you look back when you are young and idealistic we made a lot of mistakes and i think that is what everybody was honest about we made mistakes but her heart was in the right place. Other questions . I have an interesting footnote to the second edition. In 1968, i was drafted and left the country and went to sweden and while i was there, you mentioned Curtis Powell being one of the panther 21. His wife came over with his two kids, two beautiful kids. My girlfriend and i took care of them while he was going through his trial and i had to leave before i found out what happened. He came and got the kids and went, to ghana or maui one of e two, he came and got the kids but i dont know if you know anything about these guys. This was over 50 years ago. Plus we had a black Panther Party committee. We got to meet whenever they came over to speak we would take them around to various european countries. Is Curtis Powell still with us . I can to i thought maybe you might have a little more information. F a lot of folks after the trial after they are acquitted a lot of the defendants moved on with their lives. Started families, some carried on the struggle. They felt like thats what they hadd to do but others just wantd to raise a family. So theres a lot of people i think thats the way they wanted. But thanks for sharing that. What impact do you feel that the fracturing of the black Panther Party had on tupac and his music since he had roots in the eastst coast and west coast . The whole east coast west coast thing is so silly. It makes sense now. He was born in new york city and later moved to california and became associated with california people lose sight of the fact he was new york born and raised. Im sure he knew the factions between east and west coast. What he knew most of all was the party, what it did to his family, but it did to his mother. He talked a lot about growing up and having to run from Police Officers whooo were looking for his family. He and his sister. He grew up knowing what it was like to be persecuted and chased and followed and that kind of trauma i feel like a lot of people in the movement they carry that trauma of my family survived the government trying to kill them so theres a lot of rage. In hisl music he has a lot of rage and i think that has really impacted what he grew up with knowing not only will this inspirational largerthanlife figures but they were damaged from what happened to them. They were in prison, they watched loved ones die. He carried a lot of bitterness and vindictiveness that came out in his music and i think that he wanted to be more positive but he carried that with him throughout his artistic career. I cant wait to read this book. Its been exciting to hear you talk about it. I will get into it tonight. My question piggybacks off of that. Can you talk about your process as a writer and being able to confidently get into tupacs had to say with confidence about the conflicts he had and the vulnerability and the rage other than maybe his obvious public representation . I dont even think h he knew what was going on in his head and i dont know i can confidently speak to what he was going through. All i can do is speak to what he was experiencing and why he may have been so angry and sad and conflicted. Hes become this largerthanlife mythological person who we have our own ideas of who he was like thug life or thiso or that. I wanted to sort of show him as this very conflicted, traumatized, confused, sensitive Vulnerable Person and let that speak for itself to show what he was going through and his words and how hes changed over time and the pressures he was facing, the immense pressure, carrying his family, financing them he had his own struggles, wild and out getting into trouble. Im trying to psychoanalyze him and at least explain what he was going through and all those pressures he was facing showing a person of more complete and a slightly damaged person them just hears the storiesea youve heard a million times before. I wanted to connect him to thaw struggle first and foremost the book is about the family and the way theyve carried on the movement. I dont want to get into a whole thingd where im talking about him and what he was thinking but i do want to show the challenges he faced and that he wanted to honor his family about he also needed to get paid and i wanted to show him as a real person. The mistakes that he made just happened to beli in front of everybody in the public eye. He couldnt just make a mistake. It would be all over the newspapers and on the news and that affected him. He no longer have a private life where he could work out his own issues. Everything was in the public so that is where i wanted to show that more than anything, what he was facing than what he was thinking at the time. Do we have time for one more question . We have time for one more. If no one has one, i have a question. I am curious about the title. You talk about the first part and im curious about the second part specifically the nation they created and if it is in reference to the country were themselves and what nation do you think they created . That is a good question. The nationti they created. Its not just a nationstate. America can be a People United with religious or ethnic or common struggle and the nation can grow or break apart as nations do. This created a course of those dedicated in passion for and its always beenn sort of a nation within. Like theres a system itself but oppressed communities that form a nation and that is the nation that they helped to build a struggle, awareness, consciousness and that is carried s on today anytime you e any grassroots direct action activism, people serving the Community Without flags or yard signs just doing the work quietly for the community, that is something that they helped to cultivate and build. They worked with of the shakurs, helped raise young tupac can have stories and it was amazing to connect with her. Also a rapper in the group that was tupacs group. I want to acknowledge you and say thank you. You think this is just a Community Center . Its way more than that. Comcast is partnering with a thousand Community Centers to create wifi lift zones so students from low income families get the tools they need