Tupac Shakur's mom dies; Established peace garden, art gallery

Atlantans are remembering the mother of late rapper Tupac Shakur, after news that the part-time Atlanta resident Afeni Shakur has died.

In 2005, Shakur opened the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation Center for the Arts on Memorial Drive in DeKalb County, an institution she hoped would include a performing arts theater, museum, art gallery, community meeting space and classrooms. The center has since closed and is not open to the public

Shakur said at the time she wanted an arts center in DeKalb County because her son bought his first home here, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in 2005.

The center originally included lifesize bronze statue of Tupac Shakur, a garden called the Tranquility Path, lined with tulips, pansies, crocus and other flowers. Commemorative bricks, including those bought by the Marshall Mathers Foundation and Clark Atlanta University, were paved into the peace garden. The center also included a bronze plaque of words written by Tupac Shakur. The plaque is called "Untitled" and says:

Please wake me when I'm free

I cannot bear captivity

where my culture I'm told holds no significance

I'll wither and die in ignorance.

But my inner eye can c a race

who reigned as kings in another place

the green trees were rich and full

and every man spoke of beautiful

men and women together as equals.

War was gone because all was peaceful

But now like a nightmare I wake 2 c

That I live like a prisoner of poverty