Afeni Shakur

Afeni Shakur Davis (born Alice Faye Williams; January 10, 1947 – May 2, 2016) was an American political activist and member of the Black Panther Party. Shakur was the mother of rapper Tupac Shakur and the executor of his estate. She founded the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation and was the CEO of Amaru Entertainment, Inc., a record and film production company she founded.

Early life

Afeni Shakur was born Alice Williams on January 10, 1947, in Lumberton, North Carolina. She had an older sister, Gloria "Glo" Jean. At the age of eleven in 1958, Williams and her sister moved to the South Bronx with their mother, a factory worker.

Williams attended Benjamin Franklin Junior High School in the Bronx, where she demonstrated above average reading ability and her grades qualified her for honors. She wrote for the school newspaper, The Franklin Flash, and in the ninth grade, won a journalism award for which she received congratulations from Mayor Robert F. Wagner. In 1962, Williams passed the qualifying examinations for the Bronx High School of Science and High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan. She chose the latter because she felt performers and actors were free spirited. However, Williams could not afford the school supplies and she felt like an outcast at the school, so she dropped out after one term. She began drifting and became a member of a Bronx street gang called the Disciples.

She briefly worked a postal job, becoming one of the first woman mail carriers in New York.