Afeni Shakur

“We cannot go anywhere with anger that we haven't already been.”

“When I carried Tupac, when I was five months pregnant they put me back in jail, my bail was revoked. When my bail was revoked, I was not allowed to have my own food. I could only have what was there.”

“I spent 43 years of my life in anger and I know what it can do... Now I pray a lot. I do whatever I need to do to keep me out of that anger, out of that place where I can't grow and be better.”

“Black history won't stop no bullets.”

“That's what art is for me. It helps you maintain hope by giving you the ability to either create outside your reality, or to describe your reality.”

“Trust me, you can't change anything without causing some degree of disruption. It's impossible, that is exactly what change is. Some people are uncomfortable with the disruption that change causes, but the disruption is necessary if anything is going to change.”

“For me, revolution is around young people with no skills, college education, and coming from everywhere having an economic impact on an entire system which no one notices.”

“Anger is an all-consuming fire that will burn you and everyone else around you. Where is the justice in that?”

“That's what Tupac and I got from my dad - the rebellion and the need to fight back and be recognized for being different.”

“We need to read history from the source.”

“We must recognize that anger only agitates and incites. It cannot squelch or satisfy the hunger for justice.”