Revolutionary Fighter For Black Liberation Assata Shakur Dies At 78

Activist, revolutionary, Black Panther Party leader and member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), Assata Olugbala Shakur, has died at age 78, according to her daughter, Kakuya Shakur, meaning the ancestors have gained a fierce warrior in the fight against white supremacy.

Shakur, born JoAnne Deborah Byron on July 16, 1947, in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, New York, was the sister of fellow Black liberation movement icon Mutulu Shakur, who died in 2023 at 72, and the godmother and step-aunt of late legendary rapper and actor Tupac Shakur, whose mother, Afeni, was Mutulu’s wife.

Assata represents one of the most iconic names associated with the Black Panthers and the fight to truly liberate Black people from white overseers.

That is how Black American people see and celebrate her.

For America, she’s a far more controversial figure, and to many, she’s a notorious criminal who broke out of prison and fled the country after murdering a police officer, an act that kept her on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and New Jersey’s Most Wanted List until her dying day. According to EBSCO Knowledge Advantage, she was the first woman to be placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

On May 2, 1973, Shakur and two other BLA members were pulled over on the New Jersey Turnpike by State Trooper Werner Foerster and another highway officer. A confrontation occurred between the officers and Shakur’s group, which resulted in a shootout that left Forrester and another individual dead. In 2019, FBI’s Special Agent in Charge Gregory Ehrie characterized the shooting as “a heinous execution of a law enforcement officer, cut and dry.”

“This is without dispute,” Ehrrie continued.

Oh, but this certainly has been disputed.

In fact, supporters of Shakur have and continue to argue that the trial was flawed, citing a lack of physical evidence and eyewitness inconsistencies, and the history of efforts by law enforcement, including the FBI, to undermine and outright sabotage the civil rights movement and Black power movements.

At any rate, Shakur escaped from prison in 1979 and ultimately sought asylum in Cuba, where she lived out her life.

As written by our sister site, Bossip:

But despite the government’s efforts to silence her, Assata Shakur’s words and work lived on. Her 1988 autobiography Assata became a blueprint for resistance and self-determination, widely studied by activists, scholars, and young people searching for a voice in the struggle. Her life inspired movements like Assata’s Daughters in Chicago, and her name was shouted in protests in Ferguson and across the world. Assata was a human rights activist and freedom fighter who stood in solidarity with oppressed people worldwide — and for that, her legacy will endure.

“People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave,” Shakur once said, according to her book, Assata: An Autobiography.

In honor of her legacy, here’s the beautiful tribute to Assata Shakur, her story and her legacy, “A Song for Assata,” by Common.

Rest well, Assata, and be free.

Gone, but never forgotten.

SEE ALSO:

Op-Ed: Assata Shakur And The Endless War Against Black Liberation

Assata Shakur At 77 Represents Racial Harm, Hope