Assata Shakur, who wrote and fought for Black liberation, dies at 78

Assata Shakur, one of the most consequential Black political revolutionaries and writers of her time and enemy of the U.S. government until her last breath, died September 25. 

Shakur was 78 and living in exile in Havana, Cuba. She died of “health conditions and advanced age,” according to a statement from Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Shakur had the distinction of being the first woman to ever make the FBI’s most wanted list. She was also rap legend Tupac Shakur’s godmother.

While the FBI offered up to  $1 million for her capture, her supporters celebrated her as a feminist and anti-racist visionary. 

Shakur was born Joanne Deborah Chesimard in 1947 in Flushing, Queens. She was a member of the Black Liberation Army, a Marxist organization that advocated for “armed struggle” to achieve liberation for Black Americans in the 1970s. She escaped a New Jersey Prison in 1979, where she had been serving a life sentence for the murder of state trooper Werner Foerster. Shakur maintained her innocence throughout her life. She fled to Cuba, where she gained asylum and evaded extradition to the United States for over four decades. 

Shakur chronicled her arrest and the injustices facing Black Americans in the 1970s in her memoir “Assata: An Autobiography.” 

In it, she wrote:

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.

It is our duty to win.

We must love each other and support each other.

We have nothing to lose but our chains.”