Assata Shakur, famed Black revolutionary and erstwhile political prisoner, dead at 78

Assata Shakur, the famed African-American revolutionary who was convicted of murder in 1977 before fleeing to Cuba, has reportedly died after an illness. She was 78 years old.

In a statement on Friday, the day after her passing, Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described Shakur's death as “due to health conditions and advanced age.”

“Words cannot describe the depth of loss that I am feeling at this time,” her daughter Kakuya Shakur wrote on social media.

“I want to thank you for your loving prayers that continue to anchor me in the strength that I need in this moment. My spirit is overflowing in unison with all of you who are grieving with me at this time.”

Born JoAnne Deborah Byron in 1947, Shakur was raised in Queens, New York City, and Wilmington North Carolina, before being taken in by her aunt in Manhattan. She converted to Catholicism as a child and briefly attended Cathedral High School in Midtown before transferring, and later dropping out.

After earning a GED, Shakur attended Borough of Manhattan Community College and the City College of New York, where she became involved in the Civil Rights and Black Campus movements. While attending CCNY, Shakur married Louis Chesimard in a Catholic ceremony, though the union lasted only months; they were officially divorced in 1970 and received an annulment. 

Shakur moved to Oakland, California, in the 1970s, joining the Black Panther Party before moving back to New York to lead the chapter in Harlem. She later left the party for the Black Liberation Army, a more radical group inspired by militant Asian Communists and African anti-colonialists.  During these years, she officially took on the name Assata Olugbala Shakur and came into contact with a number of activists later accused of terrorism, including members of the Weather Underground.

In April 1971, Shakur’s criminal activities with the BLA began to come to a head, when she was shot during an attempted robbery in Manhattan and landed in jail. Later that year, she was allegedly involved in a series of robberies (including at a Catholic church) as well as attacks on police. In 1972, Shakur was sought in a case involving the execution-style murder of several police officers, with the NYPD describing her as the de facto head of the BLA—a claim largely debunked after the fact. 

The FBI also began targeting Shakur, allegedly attempting to tie her to various crimes across the Eastern Seaboard. These actions, which included a “CHESROB” investigation referencing Shakur’s birth name, came during the well-documented COINTELPRO psyop under J. Edgar Hoover, whose final years overlapped with Shakur’s heyday.

In May 1973, Shakur was involved in a traffic stop as a passenger in a vehicle driven by Sundiata Acoli, a fellow BLA member, in New Jersey. In an ensuing shootout, a second passenger and a state trooper, Werner Foerster, were killed, while Assata was wounded.

Both Shakur and Acoli were arrested, and Shakur was eventually charged with a series of crimes dating back years, including the murder of two other police officers and Foerster. Shakur was indicted a total of ten times, resulting in four dismissed cases, a hung jury, one mistrial, and three acquittals. 

Defended in court by a high-profile legal team including civil rights stalwart William Kunstler, Shakur was convicted in 1977 only for her involvement in the New Jersey Turnpike shootout, on a retrial for charges of murder, assault, and robbery. She was sentenced to life in prison. Shakur maintained her innocence and referred to herself as a political prisoner during her incarceration in New Jersey, New York, and West Virginia. where she was kept in solitary confinement and allegedly abused by officers.

In 1979, Shakur—with the help of the BLA and the Weather Underground—escaped from prison during a holdup at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Union Township, New Jersey, later living in Pittsburgh before fleeing to the Caribbean. She was regarded by many Americans, and especially the Black community, as a hero and there was widespread refusal to cooperate with an FBI womanhunt.

Shakur settled in Cuba in the 1980s, granted political asylum by Fidel Castro. There, she continued to advocate for liberation causes from afar, granting interviews to outlets from the United States and elsewhere. In 1987, she published her autobiography, which has since been translated into several languages and dramatized on audio. She co-authored another book in 1993,, “Still Black, Still Strong: Survivors of the War Against Black Revolutionaries.”

The U.S. government has variously attempted to secure Shakur’s extradition in the decades since her escape from prison. A communique from the New Jersey State Police in 1997 attempted to gain Pope John Paul II’s blessing for the operation ahead of his visit to Cuba the next year. Shakur wrote her own letter to the pontiff in 1998, detailing her journey of faith and the struggle against anti-Black racism in America.

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The same year, the United States reportedly offered to lift its 40-year old Cuban embargo in exchange for the extradition of 90 American fugitives, including Shakur—a request Castro refused. President Barack Obama floated further talks on the issue during the Cuban thaw beginning in 2015, with similar results. The end of the thaw during Donald Trump’s first term in the White House brought a more forceful approach, with the president naming Shakur specifically as a “cop-killer” whose extradition was crucial.

As of Friday morning, Shakur remains at the top of the New Jersey State Police’s most-wanted list, and on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists.

An enduring figure in Black American and Western Marxist culture, Shakur has become the namesake of at least one public school, a scholarship at one of her alma maters, Manhattan Community College, and a student center at the other, CCNY. Following pressure from conservative activists, her name was stripped from the scholarship in 1995, and from the student center in 2006, before its closure in 2013.

Shakur was the subject of a 1997 documentary, “Eyes of the Rainbow” from Cuban director Gloria Rolando, and a biographical film in 2008, “Assata aka Joanne Chesimard” from Fred Baker.

Shakur’s survivors include her daughter, Kakuya, and her former partner, Kamau Sadiki. She was predeceased by her godson, the rapper Tupac Shakur. Funeral details for Assata have not been announced.

Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.

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