Georgia House of Representative
member Cynthia McKinney (D) has introduced House Resolution 4210, a new bill that
calls for the United States government to release all documents it has collected on slain rapper,
Tupac Shakur.
Like many, McKinney believes the government was monitoring the
rapper when he was gunned down on the Las Vegas strip in 1996 after attending
a Mike Tyson fight.
Tupac was shot on Sept. 7, 1996 as he rode in the passenger
side of a BMW driven by Death Row CEO Marion “Suge” Knight, who
suffered minor wounds.
The rapper died seven days later from multiple gunshot wounds,
sparking conspiracy theories that ranged from a hip-hop rivalry, to a gang hit,
to government conspiracies.
HR 4210 calls for “the creation of the Tupac Amaru Shakur
Records Collection at the National Archives; and a second repository at the
Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts in Stone Mountain, Georgia.”
The Tupac Amaru Shakur Center in Stone Mountain opened Jun.
11, 2005.
The multi-million dollar facility’s construction was spearheaded
by Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, and was mostly funded by royalties received
from the deceased rapper’s albums, DVD’s and film projects.
Tupac’s godmother, Assata Shakur was also a member of
the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army.
In a controversial trial and ruling, Assata was convicted of
shooting a state trooper and spent six years in prison.
She escaped the prison’s “deplorable conditions”
in 1979 and in 1984, fled to Cuba, where she was shielded from prosecution by
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
She was recently placed on a government terrorist watch list
and the United States government recently announced a $1 million reward for
her capture.
In Sept. 2005, McKinney announced her plan for the Tupac Shakur
resolution at the Congressional Black Caucus’ Annual Legislative Conference
at a workshop titled "Countering Culture: COINTELPRO Attacks On Political
Musicians."
The bill is modeled
after McKinney’s 2002 HR 5762, which calls for the “expeditious
disclosure of records relevant to the life and assassination of Reverend Doctor
Martin Luther King, Jr.”
