In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdon — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated).

Rather than quote the numerous highlights in this letter, I’ll simply leave you to enjoy it. Do make sure you read to the end.

(Source: The Freedmen’s Book; Image: A group of escaped slaves in Virginia in 1862, courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

Dayton, Ohio,

August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson.

KHABARI CROSSING, Kuwait – The last U.S. soldiers rolled out of Iraq across the border to neighboring Kuwait at daybreak Sunday, whooping, fist bumping and hugging each other in a burst of joy and relief. Their exit marked the end of a bitterly divisive war that raged for nearly nine years and left Iraq shattered, with troubling questions lingering over whether the Arab nation will remain a steadfast U.S. ally.

The mission cost nearly 4,500 American and well more than 100,000 Iraqi lives and $800 billion from the U.S. Treasury. The question of whether it was worth it all is yet unanswered.

Capt. Mark Askew, a 28-year-old from Tampa, Florida who was among the last soldiers to leave, said the answer to that question will depend on what type of country and government Iraq ends up with years from now, whether they are democratic, respect human rights and are considered an American ally.

“It depends on what Iraq does after we leave,” he said, speaking ahead of the exit. “I don’t expect them to turn into South Korea or Japan overnight.”

The war that began in a blaze of aerial bombardment meant to shock and awe the dictator Saddam Hussein and his loyalists ended quietly and with minimal fanfare.

U.S. officials acknowledged the cost in blood and dollars was high, but tried to paint a picture of victory — for both the troops and the Iraqi people now free from tyranny and on a path for democracy. But gnawing questions remain: Will Iraqis be able to forge their new government amid the still stubborn sectarian clashes. And will Iraq be able to defend itself and remain independent in a region fraught with turmoil and still steeped in insurgent threats.

The villages and farming communities that surround Uganda’s capital, Kampala, are gripped by fear.

Schoolchildren are closely watched by teachers and parents as they make their way home from school. In playgrounds and on the roadside are posters warning of the danger of abduction by witch doctors for the purpose of child sacrifice.

The ritual, which some believe brings wealth and good health, was almost unheard of in the country until about three years ago, but it has re-emerged, seemingly alongside a boom in the country’s economy.

The mutilated bodies of children have been discovered at roadsides, the victims of an apparently growing belief in the power of human sacrifice.

‘Sacrifice business’

Many believe that members of the country’s new elite are paying witch doctors vast sums of money for the sacrifices in a bid to increase their wealth.

At the Kyampisi Childcare Ministries church, Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga is teaching local children a song called Heal Our Land, End Child Sacrifice.

To hear dozens of young voices singing such shocking words epitomises how ritual murder has become part of everyday life here.

“Child sacrifice has risen because people have become lovers of money. They want to get richer,” the pastor says.

“They have a belief that when you sacrifice a child you get wealth, and there are people who are willing to buy these children for a price. So they have become a commodity of exchange, child sacrifice has become a commercial business.”

The pastor and his parishioners are lobbying the government to regulate witch doctors and improve police resources to investigate these crimes.

According to official police figures, there was one case of child sacrifice in 2006; in 2008 the police say they investigated 25 alleged ritual murders, and in 2009, another 29.

The Anti-Human Sacrifice Police Task Force, launched in response to the growing numbers, says the ritual murder rate has slowed, citing a figure of 38 cases since 2006.

Pastor Sewakiryanga disputes the police numbers, and says there are more victims from his parish than official statistics for the entire country.

The work of the police task force has been strongly criticised by the UK-based charity, Jubilee Campaign.

It says in a report that the true number of cases is in the hundreds, and claims more than 900 cases have yet to be investigated by the police because of corruption and a lack of resources.

‘Quiet money’

Tepenensi led me to a field near her home where she found the body of her six-year-old grandson Stephen, dumped in the reeds. She trembled as she pointed out the spot where she found his decapitated body; he had been missing for 24 hours.

Clutching the only photo she has of her grandson, Tepenensi sobbed as she explained that although the local witch doctor had admitted to sacrificing Stephen, the police were reluctant to pursue the case.

“They offered me money to keep quiet,” she says. “I refused the offer.”

No-one from the Ugandan government agreed to do an interview. The police deny inaction and corruption.

The head of the Anti-Human Sacrifice Police Task Force, Commissioner Bignoa Moses, says the police are doing all they can to tackle the problem.

“Sometimes, they accuse us of these things because we make no arrests, but we are limited. If we get information that someone is involved in criminal activities like human sacrifice, we shall go and investigate, and if it can be proven we will take him to court, but sometimes the cases are not proven.”

Boy castrated

At Kampala main hospital, consultant neurosurgeon Michael Muhumuza shows me the X-rays of the horrific injuries suffered by nine-year-old Allan.

They reveal missing bone from his skull and damage to a part of his brain after a machete sliced through Allan’s head and neck in an attempt to behead him; he was castrated by the witch doctor. It was a month before Allan woke from a coma after being dumped near his village home.

Allan was able to identify his attackers, including a man called Awali. But the police say Allan’s eyewitness account is unreliable.

Local people told us that Awali continues to be involved with child sacrifice.

For our own inquiries, we posed as local businessmen and asked around for a witch doctor that could bring prosperity to our local construction company. We were soon introduced to Awali. He led us into a courtyard behind his home, and as if to welcome us he and his helpers wrestled a goat to the ground and slit its throat.

“This animal has been sacrificed to bring luck to us all,” Awali explained. He then demanded a fee of $390 (£250) for the ritual and asked us to return in a few days.

At our next meeting, Awali invited us into his shrine, which is traditionally built from mud bricks with a straw roof. Inside, the floor is littered with herbs, face masks, rattles and a machete.

The witch doctor explained that this meeting was to discuss the most powerful spell – the sacrifice of a child.

“There are two ways of doing this,” he said. “We can bury the child alive on your construction site, or we cut them in different places and put their blood in a bottle of spiritual medicine.”

Awali grabbed his throat. “If it’s a male, the whole head is cut off and his genitals. We will dig a hole at your construction site, and also bury the feet and the hands and put them all together in the hole.”

Awali boasted he had sacrificed children many times before and knew what he was doing. After this meeting, we withdrew from the negotiations.

We handed our notes to the police. Awali is still a free man.

‘No voice’

Allan’s father, Semwanga, has sold his home to pay for Allan’s medical treatment, and moved to the slums near the capital.

Sitting on the steps of their makeshift house, built from corrugated sheets of metal, I showed the footage of our meeting with the witch doctor to Allan on my laptop. He pointed to the screen and shouted “Awali!” confirming he is the man who attacked him.

Pastor Sewakiryanga says without the full force of the law, there is little that can be done to protect Uganda’s children from the belief in the power of human sacrifice.

“The children do not have voices, their voices have been silenced by the law and the police not acting, and the people who read the newspapers do nothing, so we have to make a stand and do whatever it takes to stamp out this evil, we can only pray that the government will listen.”

Strapped to a gurney in Georgia’s death chamber, Troy Davis lifted his head and declared one last time that he did not kill police officer Mark MacPhail. Just a few feet away behind a glass window, MacPhail’s son and brother watched in silence.

Outside the prison, a crowd of more than 500 demonstrators cried, hugged, prayed and held candles. They represented hundreds of thousands of supporters worldwide who took up the anti-death penalty cause as Davis’ final days ticked away.

“I am innocent,” Davis said moments before he was executed Wednesday night.

“All I can ask … is that you look deeper into this case so that you really can finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends to continue to fight this fight.”

Prosecutors and MacPhail’s family said justice had finally been served.

“I’m kind of numb. I can’t believe that it’s really happened,” MacPhail’s mother, Anneliese MacPhail, said in a telephone interview from her home in Columbus, Ga. “All the feelings of relief and peace I’ve been waiting for all these years, they will come later. I certainly do want some peace.”

She dismissed Davis’ claims of innocence.

“He’s been telling himself that for 22 years. You know how it is, he can talk himself into anything.”

Davis was scheduled to die at 7 p.m., but the hour came and went as the U.S. Supreme Court apparently weighed the case. More than three hours later, the high court said it wouldn’t intervene. The justices did not comment on their order rejecting Davis’ request for a stay. 

CBS News justice correspondent Jan Crawford reports that even the four liberal justices on the nation’s highest court agreed – Davis had multiple chances to prove his innocence, and each time he failed.

Hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions on Davis’ behalf and he had prominent supporters. His attorneys said seven of nine key witnesses against him disputed all or parts of their testimony, but state and federal judges repeatedly ruled against him — three times on Wednesday alone.

Officer MacPhail’s widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris, said it was “a time for healing for all families.”

“I will grieve for the Davis family because now they’re going to understand our pain and our hurt,” she said in a telephone interview from Jackson. “My prayers go out to them. I have been praying for them all these years. And I pray there will be some peace along the way for them.”

Davis’ supporters staged vigils in the U.S. and Europe, declaring “I am Troy Davis” on signs, T-shirts and the Internet. Some tried increasingly frenzied measures, urging prison workers to stay home and even posting a judge’s phone number online, hoping people would press him to put a stop to the lethal injection. President Barack Obama deflected calls for him to get involved.

“They say death row; we say hell no!” protesters shouted outside the Jackson prison before Davis was executed. In Washington, a crowd outside the Supreme Court yelled the same chant.

As many as 700 demonstrators gathered outside the prison as a few dozen riot police stood watch, but the crowd thinned as the night wore on and the outcome became clear.

Davis’ execution had been halted three times since 2007. The U.S. Supreme Court even gave Davis an unusual opportunity to prove his innocence in a lower court last year. While the nation’s top court didn’t hear the case, they did set a tough standard for Davis to exonerate himself, ruling that his attorneys must “clearly establish” Davis’ innocence — a higher bar to meet than prosecutors having to prove guilt. After the hearing, a lower court judge ruled in prosecutors’ favor, and the justices didn’t take up the case.

His attorney Stephen Marsh said Davis would have spent part of Wednesday taking a polygraph test if pardons officials had taken his offer seriously. But they, too, said they wouldn’t reconsider their decision. Georgia’s governor does not have the power to grant condemned inmates clemency. 

As his last hours ticked away, an upbeat and prayerful Davis turned down an offer for a special last meal as he met with friends, family and supporters.

“Troy Davis has impacted the world,” his sister Martina Correia said before the execution. “They say, `I am Troy Davis,’ in languages he can’t speak.”

Members of Davis’ family who witnessed the execution left without talking to reporters.

Davis’ supporters included former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, a former FBI director, the NAACP, several conservative figures and many celebrities, including hip-hop star Sean “P. Diddy” Combs.

“I’m trying to bring the word to the young people: There is too much doubt,” rapper Big Boi, of the Atlanta-based group Outkast, said at a church near the prison.

At a Paris rally, many of the roughly 150 demonstrators carried signs emblazoned with Davis’ face. “Everyone who looks a little bit at the case knows that there is too much doubt to execute him,” Nicolas Krameyer of Amnesty International said at the protest.

Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing MacPhail, who was working as a security guard at the time. MacPhail rushed to the aid of a homeless man who prosecutors said Davis was bashing with a handgun after asking him for a beer. Prosecutors said Davis had a smirk on his face as he shot the officer to death in a Burger King parking lot in Savannah.

No gun was ever found, but prosecutors say shell casings were linked to an earlier shooting for which Davis was convicted.

Witnesses placed Davis at the crime scene and identified him as the shooter, but several of them have recanted their accounts and some jurors have said they’ve changed their minds about his guilt. Others have claimed a man who was with Davis that night has told people he actually shot the officer.

“Such incredibly flawed eyewitness testimony should never be the basis for an execution,” Marsh said. “To execute someone under these circumstances would be unconscionable.”

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which helped lead the charge to stop the execution, said it considered asking Obama to intervene, even though he cannot grant Davis clemency for a state conviction.

Press secretary Jay Carney issued a statement saying that although Obama “has worked to ensure accuracy and fairness in the criminal justice system,” it was not appropriate for him “to weigh in on specific cases like this one, which is a state prosecution.”

Dozens of protesters outside the White House called on the president to step in, and about 12 were arrested for disobeying police orders.

Davis was not the only U.S. inmate put to death Wednesday evening. In Texas, white supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer was put to death for the 1998 dragging death of a black man, James Byrd Jr., one of the most notorious hate crime murders in recent U.S. history.

On Thursday, Alabama is scheduled to execute Derrick Mason, who was convicted in the 1994 shooting death of convenience store clerk Angela Cagle.

It was such a beautiful morning. Crisp and clear. Full of the promise of autumn.

Some 2,891 stock brokers and waitresses, businessmen and women, soldiers and airmen heading for their jobs or boarding planes had no idea that it would be their last.

Most of us can remember the details like it was yesterday:
    
The heart-stopping fireball as a second plane struck the World Trade Center.
    
A giant American flag unfurled over the blackened face of the Pentagon.
    
The grim resolve of the passengers on Flight 93 embodied in Todd Beamer’s words from the grave: “Let’s roll.”
    
The mind-numbing horror of the attacks — their scope and their toll — were almost too much to bear. It was a day that was supposed to change everything.
    
At least that’s what we thought.
    
Yet if the dawn on Sept. 11, 2001 gave no hint of the horrors ahead, the evening of Sept. 11, 2001 gave no hint of the road ahead.
    
Some things changed dramatically. We have fought two wars at a cost of more than 6,200 Americans killed and 45,000 wounded.
    
We have spent more than $2 trillion on those wars abroad and security at home.
    
We have seen the nation more divided over any war since Vietnam.
    
But looking back over the past decade, perhaps the real problem turned out to be how little changed.
    
The flags along the highways soon faded as Washington sank back into bitter partisan fighting. Our nation had been more unified than at any time since World War II. Today, we are more deeply divided than at any time in the past century.
    
Americans honor our troops, yet many people seem barely able to remember that we are at war.
    
And terrorism itself has hit rock bottom as a national priority. In a Pew Center poll taken last October, just 3 percent of Americans said security was one of their biggest worries — and that was before the killing of Osama bin Laden.
    
As you will hear from the men and women in this special report, terrorism may no longer be personified by a bearded man in an Afghan cave, but terrorism is very much with us.  
    
Today, it wears the face of a U.S. Army major or a teenager in a British suburb who proclaims himself a militant Islamist. It wears the face of a loner in an Arizona parking lot whose anti-government scribblings could have been written by Timothy McVeigh.
    
It wears the face of a blond Norwegian who massacres women and children to strike a blow at radical Islam. Terrorism in the name of hating terrorism.
    
So today, we pause to remember the victims of 9-11. To honor the heroes of two wars. To affirm our humanity in the face of inhumanity.
    
And to ask this question: Where do we go from here? The Patriot-News ponders that question with stories from our central Pennsylvania neighbors.

On the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, celebrities including Lady Gaga and Nas look back on how the world was changed in a new campaign in support of the 9/11 Day Observance. The “I Will” PSAs were created by Viacom to encourage all Americans to remember those lost by doing good deeds, supporting charitable causes, or volunteering in their communities.

“What will you do?” ask the familiar faces in the television spot, which will air across Viacom channels.

“We were in disbelief,” said New York native Gaga as she recalled the tragic events, while Nas added, “No one was ready for 9/11 when it happened. … I will remember the people that we lost.”

”Alpha Man: The Brotherhood of Martin Luther King” reveals the little-known story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s fraternity days as a member of the country’s first black fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, when he was a 23-year-old divinity student in Boston.

Produced by Rainforest Films for Black Entertainment Television (BET), the half-hour special, to be broadcast at 7 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, Aug. 28, was supposed to coincide with the much-anticipated official dedication of the Martin Luther King Memorial statue on the National Mall. But because of Hurricane Irene the dedication ceremonies have been postponed. The statue was scheduled to be dedicated on the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. King’s “Dream” speech.

Dr. King’s APA frat brothers were instrumental in making the $120 million, 30 feet tall King Memorial a reality.

The special, co-executive produced by Rob Hardy and Will Packer, will feature never before seen footage and first-hand accounts about a part of King’s early life that few people know about.

“We did a lot of research and asked a lot of questions about this period in King’s life,” said Hardy. “We got first hand accounts of what happened during those times. We included information to show people what a fraternity is and information about Alpha Phi Alpha in case they didn’t know. This special will give an account of what Dr. King did when he was in the fraternity.”

Pausing, Hardy added,

“King was drawn to Alpha Phi Alpha because a lot of people who were influential in that day, including Paul Robeson, Thurgood Marshall, and Duke Ellington, were all Alphas.”

Hardy said that the special will include first hand accounts from King associates who knew King during the burgeoning civil rights movement, including when King was arrested in Montgomery and how other Alpha members raised the bail money to get him released from jail.

“We also have King speaking at the 50th anniversary of the fraternity, and that was the first and only time he spoke at an Alpha convention,” said Hardy. We have broadcast footage of that speech which has never been heard.”

Although Hardy said that King pledged Alpha Phi Alpha in 1952 and was proud to be a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, he said that the future civil rights leader downplayed his association in the fraternity.

“There’s not a lot of detail about King’s life in the fraternity and we spoke with Ambassador (Andrew) Young who said that that was deliberate. King never publicized that he was an Alpha man because at that time he didn’t want to create any more divisions between black people. He felt we were all in the same struggle so he didn’t want to create any more divisions where people viewed him as separate because he is in a fraternity or he’s an Alpha. He just wanted everybody to view him as, ‘We’re all common people on a mission for civil rights’…he was more about solidarity.”

Hardy said King’s fight for social justice greatly influenced his fraternity brothers.

“The Alphas began launching student sit-ins because they saw King speak at this convention. Because King spoke to the brotherhood, he inspired other brothers to do the same thing and to take a nonviolent approach towards civil rights.”

Actor and author Hill Harper serves as host and narrator of the production.

“Hill traveled to Boston, Atlanta, D. C. and Dayton to meet some of the people who actually knew Dr. King,”

Said Hardy, who also told us that Harper and Dianne Ashford served as producers on the project.

Former Black Panther Party leader Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt, whose murder conviction was overturned after he spent 27 years in prison for a crime he maintained he did not commit, died early Friday from a medical ailment, an associate said. He was 63.

Pratt died just after midnight at his home in Imbaseni village, 15 miles from Arusha, Tanzania, where he had lived for at least half a decade, friend and former Black Panther member Pete O’Neal said. O’Neal said he suspects Pratt died of a heart attack or stroke. Pratt was taken to the hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday with high blood pressure.

Pratt was convicted in 1972 of being one of two men who robbed and fatally shot schoolteacher Caroline Olsen on a Santa Monica, Calif., tennis court in December 1968. No one else was arrested.

Pratt claimed he was in Oakland for Black Panther Party meetings the day of the murder, and that FBI agents and police hid and possibly destroyed wiretap evidence that would prove it.

The Black Panther Party was an African-American revolutionary leftist organization, active in the United States from 1966 until 1982. It achieved notoriety through its involvement in the Black Power movement and in U.S. politics of the 1960s and 70s.

Lawyer Stuart Hanlon, who helped Pratt win his freedom, said Pratt refused to carry any resentment about his treatment by the legal system.

“He had no anger, he had no bitterness, he had no desire for revenge. He wanted to resume his life and have children,” Hanlon told The Associated Press from San Francisco on Thursday. “He would never look back.”

Pratt lived a peaceful life in Tanzania that he loved, O’Neal said. Pratt returned from a visit to the U.S. about 10 days ago and remarked that he appreciated the pace of his life in Africa.

“He’s my hero. He was and will continue to be,” O’Neal said. “Geronimo was a symbol of steadfast resistance against all that is considered wrong and improper. His whole life was dedicated to standing in opposition to oppression and exploitation. … He gave all that he had and his life, I believe, struggling, trying to help people lift themselves up.”

Pratt worked with the United African Alliance Community Center in Arusha for the last nine years that he lived in the Tanzanian community, which sits near the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. The organization, which O’Neal founded 20 years ago, works to empower youth.

Pratt’s lawyers, who included high-profile defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, blamed his arrest on a politically charged campaign by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI against the Black Panthers and other perceived enemies of the U.S. government.

Pratt’s belated reversal of fortune came with the disclosure that a key prosecution witness hid the fact he was an ex-felon and a police informant.

Superior Court Judge Everett Dickey granted him a new trial in June 1997, saying the credibility of prosecution witness Julius Butler who testified that Pratt had confessed to him could have been undermined if the jury had known of his relationship with law enforcement. He was freed later that month.

Cochran, best known representing such clients as O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson, called the day Pratt’s freedom was secured

“the happiest day of my life practicing law.”

Prosecutors announced two years after the conviction was overturned that they would abandon efforts to retry him.

“I feel relieved that the L.A. DA’s office has finally come to their senses in this respect,” Pratt said at the time. “But, I am not relieved in that they did not come clean all the way in exposing their complicity with this frame-up, this 27-year trauma.”

He settled a false imprisonment and civil rights lawsuit against the FBI and city of Los Angeles for $4.5 million in 2000.

He Speaks on Tupac with AHH

As his godfather, who was the real Tupac?

Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt: Tupac, to me, was this beautiful little boy that used to climb all over me that was so full of energy. He was not a well known person then. And then, as I saw him grow, I felt that Tupac had this thing in him and he was just so special to me. And so was his sister, Sekyiwa. And the point where he became famous is the point of our departure, because I didn’t hear from him but 2-3 times. Indirectly from him mother or something, but he was busy – I understood. But, it was a Pac I didn’t really know. The only Pac I knew was before he got famous. He was my man, my man.

A few members of the family that I’ve talked to said similar things that they lost touch after the family went to the West Coast.

Geronimo Pratt: I was shocked when I [found out] that Pac was a millionaire. I had no idea that Pac had any money. I heard his name on the radio a couple times. And then I come out here and he’s dead? And his mother is telling me all these things: Pac did this, Pac did that. That just goes to show how alienated I was. I was generally proud when I heard his name – that’s my god boy.

What do you think about the legions of fans that follow him?

Geronimo Pratt: That something. It’s like Elvis not being allowed to die. The won’t let Pac die. And when they ask me, I say, as long as I breathe air Pac is never dead. This is what they want to hear. I always say that anyway. These kids come up and hug me and I say, “Damn, these kids love Pac.” I cannot figure it out other than the chemistry that existed, that he was a genius and he knew how to reach his people. He reached them, they love him and they will not let him die. I love him, because he’s my godson, he’s family and I struggle to understand as I grow.

The Pac that I personally related to the most was the one when he first came out, when he was a lot more political. Do you think a lot of people forget “that” Pac? Seems like people relate to the “Thug Life” side?

Geronimo Pratt: Most of the people that came into the Panthers, that violated, were send by the police. And so they glorified that image of the gangsterism and they shunned all the s**twe were doing in the community-feeding children, medical care and whatnot. That’s the enemy at work. So, with hip-hop, they will glorify the destructive elements and try to subdue the positive side. I think Pac had a good balance.

The Obama administration used DNA testing and other means to confirm that elite American forces in Pakistan had in fact killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, officials said Monday, as the world absorbed the stunning news.

The officials said the DNA testing alone offered a “99.9 percent” certainty that bin Laden was shot dead in a daring U.S. military operation. Detailed photo analysis by the CIA, confirmation by other people at the raid site and matching physical features like bin Laden’s height all helped confirmed the identification.

One official said there should be no doubt in anybody’s mind that the person killed was bin Laden.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.

Still, it was unclear if the world would ever get visual proof. Bin Laden’s body was quickly buried at sea, and administration officials were weighing the merit and appropriateness of releasing a photo of bin Laden, who was shot in the head.

The face of global terrorism was killed in a firefight with American forces. As spontaneous celebrations and expressions of relief gave way to questions about precisely what happened and what comes next, U.S. officials warned that the campaign against terrorism is not nearly over — and that the threat of retaliation was real.

“The fight continues and we will never waver,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday. Her comments had echoes of former President George W. Bush’s declaration nearly a decade ago, when al-Qaida attacks against America led to war in Afghanistan and changed the way Americans viewed their own safety.

Turning to deliver a direct message to bin Laden’s followers, she vowed:

“You cannot wait us out.”

President Barack Obama himself delivered the news of bin Laden’s killing in a dramatic White House statement late Sunday. “Justice has been done,” he said.

The president was expected to address the topic again in a Medal of Honor ceremony shortly before noon EDT.

Officials say CIA interrogators in secret overseas prisons developed the first strands of information that ultimately led to the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The military operation that ended bin Laden’s life took mere minutes, and there were no U.S. casualties.

U.S. Blackhawk helicopters ferried about two dozen troops from Navy SEAL Team Six, a top military counter-terrorism unit, into the compound identified by the CIA as bin Laden’s hideout — and back out again in less than 40 minutes. Bin Laden was shot in the head, officials said, after he and his bodyguards resisted the assault