Skip to content

Lumumba Shakur

AKA: Anthony Coston
Released
Gender:Male
Race:Black
Era:1960s
State:New York
Time Imprisoned:
2 Years 1 Month 11 Days
Support
Black Liberation Black Panther Party Panther 21
Lumumba Shakur

Biography

Lumumba Abdul Shakur, born Anthony Coston, was the section leader of the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party and the husband of Afeni Shakur. He was a lead defendant in the New York Panther 21 conspiracy case, arrested April 2, 1969 and held in the Manhattan House of Detention (the Tombs) on $100,000 bail through most of the pretrial period. He was acquitted along with 12 co-defendants on May 13, 1971 after a Manhattan jury rejected the conspiracy theory built largely on undercover NYPD testimony. He returned to organizing in the Northeast after the trial and later moved to North Carolina, where he died in 1986.

Case

Manhattan House of Detention (the Tombs)
Charges: New York state conspiracy (156 counts) - charged with the other 20 defendants in the Panther 21 indictment of April 2, 1969.
Arrested: Apr 1, 1969
Incarcerated: Apr 1, 1969
Released: May 12, 1971
Sentence: ~2 years pretrial detention at $100,000 bail; acquitted by jury verdict, New York Supreme Court, New York County, May 13, 1971. Verdict as recorded: No - acquitted by jury, New York Supreme Court, May 13, 1971 Charges as recorded: New York state conspiracy (156 counts) - charged with the other 20 defendants in the Panther 21 indictment of April 2, 1969 for an alleged plot to bomb NYPD precincts, the Bronx Botanical Garden, midtown department stores, and a railroad right-of-way. The prosecution case rested almost entirely on the testimony of three undercover NYPD officers; the jury deliberated approximately 90 minutes and acquitted all 13 defendants who went to trial of every count.
Convicted: No — acquitted
Institution State: New York