His parents, Afeni Shakur (born Alice Faye Williams in North Carolina) and Billy Garland, were active members of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[20] Lesane was born a month after his mother was acquitted of more than 150 charges of "Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks" in the New York Panther 21 trial.[21][22]
Many people in Shakur's life were involved with the Black Liberation Army; some were convicted of serious criminal offenses and imprisoned, including his mother. His godfather, Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a high-ranking Black Panther, had been convicted of murdering a school teacher during a 1968 robbery, although his sentence was later overturned. His stepfather, Mutulu Shakur, spent four years at large on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, beginning in 1982. Mutulu was wanted for having helped his friend (no relation) Assata Shakur (also known as Joanne Chesimard), Tupac's godmother, to escape from a penitentiary in New Jersey in 1979. Mutulu was caught in 1986 and eventually convicted and sentenced to prison for the 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored truck, during which two police officers and a guard were killed.[23]
