THE ASSATA SHAKUR

MULTI-MEDIA GUIDE

http://www.assatashakur.org/

Assata: Exile since 1979: On May, 2 1973, Black Panther activist Assata Shakur (s/n) JoAnne Chesimard, was

pulled over by the New Jersey State Police, shot twice and then charged with murder of a police officer. Assata

spent six and a half years in prison under brutal circumstances before escaping out of the maximum security wing

of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey in 1979 and moving to Cuba.

Assata: In her own words

My name is Assata ("she who struggles") Shakur ("the thankful one"), and I am a 20th century escaped slave.

Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression,

racism and violence that dominate the US government's policy towards people of color. I am an ex political

prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist most of my life, and

although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I

ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights

movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black

Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI's Cointelpro program. because the

Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it "greatest threat to the

internal security of the country" and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.

Click and play mp3 Introduction by Assata, “We Can Win Our Liberation”

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Early bio

Source: http://socialjustice.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/index.php/Early_bio

Assata Shakur was born Joanne Deborah

Byron Chesimard on July 16, 1947 in New

York City. From an early age, she was raised

to be a socially aware and proud black woman.

Her parents were divorced shortly after she

was born and when she was three years old,

she moved down South to North Carolina with

her grandparents. All of her family tried to

instill in her a sense of personal dignity,

forcing her to never make subservient gestures

to whites and constantly stressing that she was

just as good as whites. While Shakur found her

grandparents defining pride and dignity within

the value system of the white capitalist system

of America. Success meant getting the nice

things that whites had: a car, house, money

etc. In her autobiography, she remarks that her grandmother "had a lot of Booker T. Washington,

pull yourself up by the bootstraps, "talented tenth" ideas." (Shakur 31)

Shakur saw the same when she returned to New York. She lived in Jamaica, Queens and

attended elementary and middle school there. She saw that blacks were completely brainwashed

without being aware of it. They accepted white value systems and sometimes even the white

man's view of themselves. In school, constantly, girls were trying to make themselves fit to the

white beauty standards as much as possible. Furthermore, the education she received in schools

was a further part of her brainwashing as schools taught a history that was just not true. Shakur

ran away from home briefly and lived in the Village of Manhattan, where she experienced what

the real world was like for poor, impoverished blacks. Eventually, she returned to school and

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lived with her aunt Evelyn (who eventually became her lawyer during her trials). During a

summer of her high school years, Assata tried to join the NAACP. She could not, however,

accept the idea that she should just accept people spitting on her. It has led her to believe that

"nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral

sense of the people who were oppressing them." (Shakur 139) The racist system will always use

its oppressive powers to maintain itself. You cannot hope to change the system through the

system.

Shakur attended Manhattan Community College, where had a significant percentage of black and

third world students and where black consciousness and nationalism were omnipresent. The

students there belonged to many organizations, including the Black Muslims, Garveyites, and

Malcolm X's Organization of Afro-American Unity (OOAU). Here Assata began to do social

work. During the summer, she worked with grade school students in remedial programs to

improve their reading and math skills. Instead of using conventional textbooks, she often wrote

stories that pertained to the lives of her students. She also allowed them to direct classes to

empower them. In college, Assata was also exposed to socialist groups and learned much about

socialism. However, she experienced a lot of arrogance and dogmatism within these groups.

Arrogance in fact was a major reason why Assata believed that black people had to come

together and organize their own revolutionary party. The white left was too arrogant that no real

friendship nor respect could be gained working with them.

After graduating from college, Shakur went to Oakland, California. There she was exposed to

revolutionaries of other racial groups. Native Americans, Chicanos, and Chinese revolutionaries

were abound and Shakur learned much from these groups. She was so inspired that she decided

to investigate the Black Panther Party (BPP) in Oakland. There it was made clear to her that the

true enemy was not white people, but the capitalistic, imperialistic oppressors. She was

impressed by the BPP in Oakland that she returned to New York and joined the chapter there. It

was here that she met Zayd Shakur, who she would later be accused of murdering.

Upon joining the BPP in New York, however, Shakur began to face some difficulties. She dealt

with many arrogant personalities, such as Robert Bey who expelled her the first day for speaking

back to him. She was reinstated soon afterwards, however. Shakur also felt that the education

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within the BPP was lacking as many issues were discussed without delving into the historical

context or the underlying causes. As a result, many of the BPP members were just robots

repeating the party line. It convinced Shakur that a systematic program for political education for

political education was necessary for a successful movement of Black liberation.

Shakur also began to disagree with the direction of the BPP. Huey P. Newton, the leader of the

BPP, preached intercommunality, which stressed that oppressed communities existed, not

oppressed nations. Shakur saw that the problem with that was that no one had told the oppressed

communities that they were no longer nations. This conflicted with Shakur's tenet that without a

truly internationalist component, nationalism was reactionary. Any community that was

concerned with its liberation had to be concerned with other peoples' freedom also. In addition,

criticism within the organization was not encouraged and Huey Newton began to act like a

dictator within the BPP. He changed his title to Supreme Servant and expel many long-standing

Panthers. The organization had become stagnant. Assata left the Party. Assata realized later that

the degradation of the BPP was actually a product of the FBI's COINTELPRO, who destroyed

the party by using divide-and-conquer tactics, turning members against each other.

Shakur's experience with the BPP helped shape her ideas of how liberation should take place.

Armed struggle was necessary, but not sufficient to bring about a revolution. The hearts of the

masses must also be won. The most important task, according to Shakur, was to help politically

mobilize, educate, and organize the masses of Black people. Revolutionary groups could not

survive without their support. The political and military actions of the liberation groups should

be clearly understood, supported, and publicized in the Black community.

Shakur kept a low profile after she left the BPP but one day she found out that she was wanted

for question in relation to the murder of two police officers. She became a fugitive but still

worked on Liberation and joined the Black Liberation Army (BLA). On May 2, 1973, Shakur

was stopped on the New Jersey State Turnpike, along with two Black Panthers: Zayd Shakur and

Sundiata Acoli . In an ensuing gunfight, Zayd Shakur and one New Jersey state policeman were

killed and Assata Shakur and one New Jersey state policeman were injured. Over the next two-

and-a-half years, Shakur was incarcerated, beaten, and tortured in a series of federal and state

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prisons. The charges ranged from kidnapping to assault and battery to bank robbery. She was

acquitted in all six cases. During her incarceration, she became pregnant and had a daughter.

However, Shakur was found guilty of the murder of both the state trooper and Zayd Shakur, for

her involvement at the gun battle. In 1979 she escaped prison and lived underground until 1986,

when she was granted political asylum in Cuba, where she resides today.

References: http://assata-shakur.biography.ms/

Shakur, Assata. Assata: An Autobiography. Connecticut: Lawrence Hill and Company, 1987.

A Video Auto-Biography/Documentary

OPEN TO VIEW HERE

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The Text Autobiography

(PDF e-Book for download)

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Public Image Files (Click here to open)

Related document:

Who Are New Afrikan Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War

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Our Website and Forum:

Assata Shakur Speaks - Hands Off Assata - Let's Get Free - Revolutionary - Pan-

Africanism - Black On Purpose - Liberation - Forum

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