The family of Tupac Shakur were influential members of the Black Panther party and the Black Liberation Army in the 1960s and 1970s. They were involved in bank robberies, prison breaks, even murder.

His mother Afeni Shakur and her husband Lumumba Shakur were members of the Panther 21, a group of 21 Black Panthers who were being tried for plotting to bomb police stations and other buildings in the late 1960s.

Both Assata Shakur and Mutulu Shakur were on the run after being allegedly involved with murders and bank robberies. They were both on the FBI’s ten most wanted list.

His uncle Zayd Shakur was killed in a shootout with a New Jersey state trooper.

It was later learned that the FBI was running a program named COINTELPRO, in which they spied on Black Panthers and tried to destroy the movement from within. Other 1970s movements were targeted, too, such as the America Indian Movement and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Since the Shakus were so influential in the Black Panther movement, it’s pretty much a certainty that they were key targets of COINTELPRO, which probably explains why every member of his family was jailed, murdered, or exiled during a stretch in the 1960s and 1970s.