For the smart and free-thinking, Black Market Reads is a podcast featuring conversations with today's most exciting Black literary voices. We are a podcast for any one who loves to read, write, and engage. Black Market Reads is a project of The Givens Foundation for African American Literature.
Santi Elijah Holley, An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created
“The family itself is a tribe of people who are committed, who’ve taken the name out of a loyalty, out of faith, out of unity. And they are all coming together as a family… Just because we’re not all blood doesn’t make us any less of a family.”
Santi Elijah Holley
“An Amerikan Family is a first chapter in making the world better, with truth and beauty. For those of us who haven’t seen their stories written as they battled the darkness around them, An Amerikan Family is a light helping us go forward.” — Nikki Giovanni, poet
In this episode Lissa talks with Santi Elijah Holley about his book An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created. An enlightening history of the rise and lasting impact of Black liberation groups in America, as seen through the Shakurs, one of the movement’s most prominent and fiercely creative families, home to Tupac and Assata, and a powerful incubator for today’s activism, scholarship, and artistry.
In this episode Lissa talks with author Santi Elijah Holley about his latest book An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created. Holley offers a detailed history of the fight for Black liberation in the United States, as experienced and shaped by the Shakur family. It is the story of hope and betrayal, addiction and murder, persecution, and revolution. AN AMERIKAN FAMILY is not only family genealogy; it is the story of Black America’s long struggle for racial justice and the nation’s covert and repressive tactics to defeat that struggle. It is the story of a small but determined community, taking extreme, unconventional, and often perilous measures in the quest for freedom. In short, the story of the Shakurs is the story of America.
Santi Elijah Holley’s essays, reviews, and journalism have appeared in numerous outlets, including The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, VICE, The New Republic, Tin House, Atlas Obscura, The Economist, Willamette Week, and Longreads. His work has been selected for Entropy’s Best of 2019: Best Online Articles and Essays, and cited in Best American Essays 2018. He is the recipient of a 2022 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award, presented by the Los Angeles Press Club, a 2020 PEN America grant, the 2019 Robert B. Silvers grant for Work in Progress, and the 2017 Oregon Literary Fellowship for nonfiction, awarded by Literary Arts.
