Today a professor mentioned seeing a Black Panther on trial years ago who was preggers. He was referring to Tupac's mom, Afeni Shakur and it brought back a memory of a book I read a few years ago entitled, To America With Love: Letters From The Underground by Abbie and Anita Hoffman. Hoffman was a '60's radical and sort of a tragic figure, dying young and writing a few books here and there.
The book is made up of letters Abbie and his wife wrote to each other when he had to go underground to avoid a lengthy prison sentence for drugs. America is the son of the author. Abbie has to take on a new identity and Anita seems to be just about one of the only people he could connect to. Going underground to not get yourself sent to prison so they can throw the key is some heavy shit and Hoffman must have been freaked.
As I recall, things were not easy for Mrs. Hoffman, either, with her husband on the run and a young child to raise with the neighbors scorn and no large source of income. She and Afeni Shakur became friends and Anita mentions Tupac often in her letters to Abbie, going on about how sweet he his and how he and America get on so famously. My word not hers. Reading something like that makes you think wtf was going on back then!? The answer lies in the type of place this country was back then: nasty war abroad, the locking up of non-violent drug offenders at home, a scum bag for a President.
The book isn't very long and is entirely captivating. As the two learn to get on without one another their love grows stronger and that is not something you come across everyday. Highly recommended.
N/P - L.A. Freeway - Guy Clark
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