Fallen Star

On August 22, 1989, Huey P. Newton was shot dead on an open street in West Oakland. Just a few miles away, Tupac was living in Marin City at the time and writing in Leila Steinberg’s writing circle. The poem Fallen Star was likely written shortly after Newton’s death: it is dedicated “4 Huey P. Newton,” the co-founder of the Black Panther Party in which Tupac’s mother Afeni Shakur had been active. In the book, the title itself appears in quotation marks; the text bears no date.

An accusation against those who wanted him dead

The poem addresses Newton directly. Others, it says, never understood what he wanted to achieve, ridiculing him instead. When he grew weak, they rejoiced at the sight of his fading light. With this, Tupac alludes to Newton’s final years, which were marked by setbacks and a loss of standing. The text suggests this interpretation without stating it outright.

At the core of the poem lies an accusation: that people wanted to see Newton dead so that he could no longer change the course of things and his people would forget what had been done to them. At the end comes a simple, personal confession: the speaker had always loved him for what he was and now mourns the fallen star.

The Panthers return in further poems

Fallen Star appears in the third section of the book, “Just a Breath of Freedom,” alongside poems about Nelson Mandela and Yusef Hawkins, who was killed in New York. Together, they show how politically minded the young Tupac was. Newton surfaces once more in the volume: in How Can We Be Free, Tupac mentions him in the same breath as George Jackson and Geronimo Pratt. Closely related is Can U C the Pride in the Panther.

The introduction provides an overview of the entire book and all the poems.