An Amerikan Family | The Shakurs and the Nation They Created | Santi Elijah Holley

In short, the story of the Shakurs is the story of America.

For over fifty years, the Shakurs have inspired generations of activists, scholars, and music fans. Many people are only familiar with Assata Shakur, the popular author and thinker, living for three decades in Cuban exile; or the late rapper Tupac. But the branches of the Shakur family tree extend widely, and the roots reach into the most furtive and hidden depths of the underground. Whether founding one of the most notorious Black Panther chapters in the country, spearheading community-based healthcare, or engaging in armed struggle with systemic oppression, the Shakurs were at the forefront.

They have been celebrated, glorified, and mythologized. They have been hailed as heroes, liberators, and freedom fighters. They have been condemned, pursued, imprisoned, exiled, and killed. But the true and complete story of the Shakur family—one of the most famous names in contemporary Black American history—has never been told.

An Amerikan Family is a history of the fight for Black liberation in the United States, as experienced and shaped by the Shakurs. It is a story of hope and betrayal, addiction and murder, persecution and revolution. Drawing from hundreds of hours of personal interviews, historical archives, court records, transcripts, and other rare documents, An Amerikan Family tells the complete and often devastating story of Black America’s long struggle for racial justice and the nation’s covert and repressive tactics to defeat that struggle. It is the story of a small but determined community, taking extreme, unconventional, and often perilous measures in the quest for freedom.

Santi Elijah Holley has reported for more than a decade on the intersec­tion of culture, music, race, religion, and politics. His work has appeared in numerous national and inter­national outlets, including The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, The Atlantic, National Geographic, NPR, The New Republic, The Economist, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Holley is the recipient of grants from PEN America and the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, and he was awarded an Oregon Literary Fellowship for nonfiction. His previous book An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created was a New York Times Editors' Choice, an Amazon Editors' Pick for Best History, an NPR selection for the "Books We Love," a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, a finalist for the Ann M. Sperber Book Prize, and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. He lives in Los Angeles.