Cynthia McKinney Introduces the "Tupac Amaru Shakur Records Collection Act" into Congress

On November 2, 2005, Democratic Representative Cynthia McKinney of Georgia introduced bill H.R. 4210 in the U.S. House of Representatives. Its short title: “Tupac Amaru Shakur Records Collection Act of 2005”. The bill went to the Committee on Government Reform and to the Committee on Rules.

What the Bill Required

All government records concerning Tupac’s life and death were to be preserved and generally disclosed immediately. Within 60 days of taking effect, the National Archives was to create a dedicated collection under Tupac’s name. A complete copy, without physical objects, was to be housed at the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts in Stone Mountain, which had opened in June 2005. An independent citizens’ advisory board was to oversee the release.

Model and Background

According to Pollstar, the bill was modeled after the legislation on the Kennedy assassination records; AllHipHop pointed to McKinney’s earlier bill on the Martin Luther King records. She had presented her plans in September at a conference of the Congressional Black Caucus, in a panel discussion on government surveillance of political musicians. Behind the initiative was the suspicion that authorities had monitored Tupac. No evidence was found that the bill ever made it past the committees.