Former Black Panther to share ideas, opinions of empowerment

Afeni Shakur-Davis, former member of the Black Panther Party and mother of the late Tupac Shakur, will speak to the Conway community with her lecture, “Road to Peace and Empowerment,” on Feb. 13 in Reynolds Performance Hall.
In addition to the lecture, Shakur-Davis will do a book signing after the lecture, and participate in a roundtable discussion with students in the Honors and Residential Colleges and African American studies students on the following Tuesday.
Venita Jenkins, associate director of university and governmental relations at UCA, helped get the Shakur-Davis lecture together.
“I met her through my work as a reporter with Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina,” Jenkins said. “I contacted a friend of mine who serves on a board with her, and she contacted her about whether she would be interested in coming to UCA to speak, and she told her to tell me to give her a call.”
Jenkins said Shakur-Davis was eager to do the lecture, and didn’t hesitate.
“I’m interested in hearing her thoughts about where we are as a country now,” Jenkins said. “It would be interesting to hear from her how the Black Panther Party would have handles some of the situations now, like the occupy movement.”
Angela Jackson, director of multicultural student services, also helped organize this event. She and Jenkins said the idea for the Shakur-Davis lecture came after finding out James Earl Jones wouldn’t be lecturing at UCA anymore.
“We still felt it would be good for us to see a female, especially because she would be coming at a very reasonable rate, “ Jackson said.
Jackson said that the lecture wouldn’t have been possible without help from SGA.
Jenkins said she thinks the UCA community will find Shakur-Davis’ lecture inspiring.
“She has an interesting story to tell,” Jenkins said. “She was part of the Black Panther Party back in the 60s, she was arrested and charged with over 100 charges by the federal government, defended herself and was found not guilty on all of them.”
Jackson said that she feels like attendees of the lecture will benefit from hearing how Shakur-Davis has turned her life around.
“Considering that she has basically done a 360 in her life, I I think the community can learn that you can overcome obstacles, regardless of where you started,” Jackson said. “She’s been jailed, done drugs, and all of that, and she still turned her life around.”
Shakur-Davis is also well known for  being the mother of hip-hop artist, Tupac Shakur. Jenkins said she is interested to hear Shakur-Davis’ thoughts about the music industry now versus when Tupac was at the top of the hip-hop charts.
“You don’t hear a lot of music talk about social issues like Tupac’s music did,” Jenkins said. “I think a lot of that was his mother’s influence with her involvement with the Black Panther Party, or with her wanting to do something to change the conditions.”
Jenkins and Jackson said the lecture would have been impossible without the support of SGA, the office of the provost, the honors college, residential colleges, the history department and the Alumni Association.