Afeni Shakur, the mother of rapper Tupac Shakur, died Monday in Nothern California. She was 69.
The Marin County Sheriff's Department confirmed her passing via Twitter, adding that deputies responded to a possible cardiac arrest situation at 9:34 p.m. PT Monday and her Sausalito home and transported her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead almost one hour later.
Born Alice Faye Williams in 1947, she was a member of the Black Panthers and served 11 months in prison, during which time she was pregnant with the future rap star.
She served as her own defense attorney and was acquitted of multiple counts, earning release from prison shortly before Tupac's birth in June 1971.
One year after his shooting death in 1996, she founded the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, which champions youth arts programs, and oversaw his unreleased material.
