POLK COUNTY, Tenn. – A candidate running for Tennessee’s 3rd congressional district has caused a major controversy with his campaign billboards. One of Rick Tyler’s signs declared “Make America White Again” and the other quotes “I have a dream” over a drawing of the White House covered in Confederate flags. He told WRCB-TV that he doesn’t…
The Black Panthers wrote this touching letter after the passing of Black activist, organizer & fearless leader, Afeni Shakur Davis.
We are deeply saddened by the passing of our sister Afeni Shakur.
Afeni was a sister, mentor, comrade and leader within the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party.
As the section leader of the Harlem branch, Afeni was the one who personally welcomed many of us into the party. As the communications secretary, she was one of the highest ranking members on the East Coast and her leadership was the reason many young women joined.Afeni had a deep and profound love for the community and a passion for the people that made her a dynamic organizer and dedicated activist. She embodied the spirit of what it meant to be a Black Panther, waking up at 5AM to cook for the free breakfast program, coordinating the day to day office duties and personally being in the field.
Afeni’s organizing laid the seeds for a legacy we still bear witness to today. While working with tenant organizations, Afeni led numerous rent strikes, resulting in several tenant owned buildings, some of which still exist today. She was instrumental in organizing health care professionals and patients at Lincoln Hospital and Harlem Hospital to develop the first patient bill of rights, a fore runner of the patient bill of rights now posted in every hospital.
After the Black Panther Party, Afeni continued her work in the community as a paralegal helping save hundreds of families from eviction and criminal convictions. She left an everlasting impact on the community and the arts world with her life long contributions that will never be forgotten.
We send our deepest condolences and heartfelt sympathy to Sekyiwa, Jean and the entire Shakur family. We ask that young people everywhere continue Afeni’s legacy by lifting up her name and continuing to organize in their communities wherever they see injustice.
We Love you dear sister Afeni. Long live your revolutionary spirit!
All Power To The People!
Sincerely,
The National Alumni Association of the Black Panther Party
October 2015, Sandra Ávila Beltran, the revered “Queen of Cocaine” or “Queen of the Pacific” was released from prison.
She has spent the last seven years in confinement for money laundering, including two years in solitary confinement.
Avila, now in her early 50s, was arrested in 2007 in Mexico City with her Colombian boyfriend, Juan Diego Espinoza Ramirez, whom officials claimed was also a powerful drug-world figure.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, “Avila is believed to have been a rare figure — a powerful woman — in Latin America’s testosterone-saturated drug world, and her story has become a kind of genre to itself, particularly with the success of ‘La Reina del Sur,’ the wildly popular Telemundo telenovela to which Avila’s life is sometimes compared. (Fortune)
The former Cartel queen pin gave an exclusive interview, her first in nearly a decade, from her home near Guadalajara, Mexico. In that interview she lashed out at political corruption in Mexica, mocked the futility of drug prohibition and praised Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
Ávila is the stuff legends are made of – one of the few women with access to the highest levels of cartel life. She has lived, worked and loved inside the upper echelons of the Mexican drug world since the late 1970s. At the height of her career, she showed a propensity to carry suitcases with millions of dollars in crisp $100 bills.
Check out the entire insightful interview with one of the notorious women of the underworld: Queen of Cartels: most famous female leader of Mexico’s underworld speaks out
The Pen Hustle With Brandy Cavalli 
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