Episode 2 – ‘Radical Roots of Acupuncture’

In episode 2 of DOPE IS DEATH activist, professor and author Johanna Fernandez takes us back to the late 1960s and early 1970s during the height of the heroin plague that ravaged Puerto Rican and Black communities in New York City. Drawing from her seminal book on the subject, The Young Lords: A Radical History, Fernandez describes how a coalition of young activists, including members of the Young Lords and the Black Panther Party, took over the Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx to demand quality healthcare and drug treatment for their medically neglected communities. We will also talk with activists Cleo Silvers and Felipe Luciano about their involvement in the hospital takeover and the events leading up to it. Featured guests: Johanna Fernandez Cleo Silvers Felipe Luciano

Om Podcasten

By the early 1970s, heroin was flooding the streets of New York City. Black and Puerto Rican neighbourhoods like Harlem and the South Bronx were hardest hit. This four part podcast series explores how Dr. Mutulu Shakur, stepfather of the late Tupac Shakur, along with members of the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords, combined community health with radical politics to create the first acupuncture detoxification program in America. Over the course of the 1970s, the Lincoln Detox People’s Program became a fixture of hope in the South Bronx and detoxed thousands of people off of drugs. DOPE IS DEATH explores why this program was considered a threat to the political and social stability of the United States. And how its brightest star, celebrated community activist and healer Dr. Mutulu Shakur, ended up one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted until he was captured and convicted of RICO conspiracy. Today, 34 years later, Dr. Mutulu Shakur remains incarcerated. Civil rights hero or enemy of the state? DOPE IS DEATH dives deep into the history of COINTELPRO and other legal tools that law enforcement can utilize to repress political dissidents.