About Akili

Akili's fourth birthday

Akili was born Aron Douglass Castlin on 11-07-72 and he and his brother were raised by his mother in Los Angeles, California. As a teenager, he spent weekend and summer vacations with his white, middle-class father and siblings, trying to navigate the vertiginous space between being poor, black and living from paycheck to paycheck and middle-class, white and privileged: the equivalent of going from the field to the overseer’s house, and back again.

This time was a whirlwind of confusion, and he became cognizant of how these worlds collide and repel one another. His precarious bi-racial experience provoked a search for authenticity through immersing himself in writing, black history, skateboarding, music and community activism via high school politics.

Akili skateboarding, around 14 years old

After graduating from Inglewood High School, he joined the Navy, where (ironically) he found the same carousel of addictions and confusion he was hoping to steer clear of, prompting his other-than-honorable discharge for incorrigibility. Upon his return home to Inglewood, he discovered an affinity for spokenword and began honing his skills at open mic, freestyle and slam events. Tethered to the anvil of addiction, however, he began a downward spiral further into the whirlwind, which led to a 1996 conviction for robbery and an 8-year prison sentence.

 

Determined to let go of old, limited patterns and ways of being, he developed a singular focus and insatiable appetite for the symbols of the dragon, fire and art, and the seven pillars of self, trusting in these he could find the answer to the question of identity and where and how multicultural blacks fit into the struggle for self-determination. Uplifted and inspired by the Afrikan revolutions and revolutionaries he read about, he soon accepted the name Haroun Akili Mungu Mtumishi.

This commitment to the six modes of selfless revolution and the search for an authentic and non-parasitic identity and lifestyle came to a crossroads in 1999, when Akili was indicted in San Luis Obispo, with less than six months left to serve on his 1996 sentence, culminating in an unconstitutional conviction and his being validated as a threat to the safety and security of the California prison industrial complex.

Akili in his cell in Pelican Bay State Prison

Akili is now being held captive in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison, where he continues to write, study and live a life of reverence and respect for those who’ve paved the way.