—political activist, author, fugitive, and step-aunt of the famed, slain hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur—was born JoAnne Deborah Bryon on July 16, 1947 in New York City, New York. Following her parents’ divorce in 1950, she moved with her mother and maternal grandparents to Wilmington, North Carolina. Shakur spent much of her adolescence alternating residences between her mother, who remarried and returned to New York, and relatives in Wilmington.
Shakur enrolled in Borough of Manhattan Community College before transferring to City College of New York, where her exposure to Black Nationalist organizations profoundly impacted her activism. Shakur attended meetings held by the Golden Drums, where she met her husband, Louis Chesimard. Members of the organization familiarized her with black historical figures that resisted racial oppression and social violence. She also began interacting with other activist groups and subsequently participated in student rights, anti-Vietnam war, and black liberation movements. In 1971, she adopted a new name: Assata (“she who struggles”) Olugbala (“love for the people”) Shakur (“the thankful”).
During a trip to Oakland, California in 1970, Shakur became acquainted with the Black Panther Party (BPP). She returned to New York City and joined the Harlem branch. Shakur worked in the BPP breakfast program but grew increasingly critical of the BPP because of their reluctance to collaborate with other black organizations.
Shakur left the BPP in 1971 and joined the Black Liberation Army (BLA), which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) branded an anarchist group. In 1972, the Bureau issued a warrant for her arrest in connection with crimes allegedly committed by the BLA.
On the evening of May 2, 1973, Shakur and two BLA companions were stopped by two state troopers for a traffic infraction on the New Jersey Turnpike, an encounter that ended in the deaths of Assata’s friend Zayd Shakur and State Trooper Werner Foerster. Arraigned on charges that included first-degree murder, Shakur went to trial seven times and was eventually convicted of Trooper Foerster’s murder regardless of her contention that the gunshot wound she sustained during the confrontation partially paralyzed her arm and rendered her incapable of firing a weapon. Despite forensic evidence that supports her assertions, she was found guilty of murder in 1977 and sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years.
In 1979, Shakur escaped from the maximum security unit of the New Jersey Clinton Correctional Facility for Women. She traveled to Cuba in 1984 where she was granted political asylum and reunited with her daughter Kakuya Amala Olugbala, whom she delivered while imprisoned.
In 2013, on the 40th anniversary of Trooper Foerster’s death, the FBI placed Shakur on the Most Wanted Terrorists list, conferring upon her the dubious distinction of being the first woman and the second domestic terrorist to appear on the list. It also increased her bounty to two million dollars.
Shakur continues to live in exile in Cuba. Since her escape, Shakur’s life has been depicted in songs, documentaries and various literary works.
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Some of the guys at work invited me to their DND session. I’ve never done this sort of thing so what should I expect?
Snacks, rolling dice, and potentially people doing silly voices for a few hours. If you're making a character and don't want to get too deep into the mechanics right away just make a fighter and your decisions in combat mostly boil down to who do I want to hit this turn. Have fun!
You'll sit around a table with a bunch of people. One person is the dungeon master and acts as the storyteller and referee. They'll tell you what the world around your character is like. The other players each have a character they are playing. You'll interact with the other players to work out what your party is doing and ask the dm to describe what's around you and what's happening. If you get in to combat each player will take turns declaring what they want their character to do then rolling dice to determine whether or not the character succeeds. The dm will control any npc characters like monsters or elves.
Mostly it's a combination of hanging out, light improv, group problem solving, and board game combat. If your group is chill they should walk you through eevrything and answer your questions. It'll take a bit to get the hang of how the game plays and what your character can and cannot do, so ask lots of questions if you're unsure.
You can endear yourself to the group by bringing a snack everyone can share.
That sounds like a lot of fun. I always pictured DND as having a huge game board that you moved characters on with massive amounts of text to understand.
DnD, as an intro, is like a group playing make believe together based on a lengthy set of rules and stipulations. An illustrative example:
DM talking to you
"Your character is drowning in a river"
"Well I swim up"
"Your armor weighs too much for you to swim up"
"Well then I take my armor off"
"According to the rules, that takes X amount of seconds, that means it takes Y rounds of combat"
"How long until I drown?"
"How many hitpoints do you have?"
"Z hitpoints"
"You have J seconds"
Then, your friend intervenes
"Can I help them take their armor off?"
DM checks the book and hums
"Explain how you do that"
"I'll cut the strings of their breastplate off with a knife."
"Sure, it'll only take K seconds then"
You can go ahead and try to be more prepared, but I always see the uncertainty before something new as part of the enjoyment - the appetizer before the meal.
Yeah, the DM's job, in cooperation with the players, is to create scenarios that will challenge both the players and hteir characters through storytelling, battles, puzzles, mysteries, whatever. It's collaborative, everyone at the table including the DM is there to play a game, and it works best when everyone kind of supports each other.
There are hella rules and rulebook, but the dm is really the only one who needs to be familiar with any of them and some are very circumstantial so usually the dm looks it up before that session or if they're caught with something unexpected, looks it up or just makes something up cause the rules just set a framework to play make believe.
Yeah, For years the older editions all opened with "Rule 0", which read something like "All the rules in this giant ass rule-book are option and the DM and players can change them or ignore them at any time because the point is to have fun and the rules are there to support having fun, not get in the way".
I've never played anything newer, didn't know they did away with that
The table can be literally anything from just character sheets and imagination to a whole built up miniature dungeon. The people there will be happy to help you make a character.
Yeah, there's tons of tools now. Some people still go old-school and draw grids on graphing paper, others build or print tiny model buildings and monsters, still other people use programs like talespire.
The rules can be very intimidating when you're just starting out. A good group of players will help you understand what your character can do and what you, as a player, are expected to bring to the table. Then you can gradually learn the rules at your own pace. Different groups place more or less emphasis on the rules. Some groups like a very mechanically, mathematically crunchy game and find joy in using deep mastery of the rules system to set up interesting character builds and synergies while other groups are more focused on story, character, and improv. And soem table combine the two, or focus on something else entirely. One of the really nice things is that you can play the game in many different ways depending on what your goals are and what you can enjoy. But that can also be a challenge when you need to find a group you jive with.