Struggling for the people’s liberation

“Every time a Black Freedom Fighter is murdered or captured, the pigs try to create the impression that they have quashed the movement, destroyed our forces, and put down the Black Revolution. The pigs also try to give the impression that five or ten guerrillas are responsible for every revolutionary action carried out in amerika. That is nonsense. That is absurd. Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, Leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters of all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA.

There is, and always will be, until every Black man, woman, and child is free, a Black Liberation Army. The main function of the Black Liberation Army at this time is to create good examples, to struggle for Black freedom, and to prepare for the future. We must defend ourselves and let no one disrespect us. We must gain our liberation by any means necessary.”

—Assata Shakur

The life of Assata Shakur is routinely minimized to a conviction for killing a New Jersey state trooper and her daring escape from prison to Cuba. The narrative this country would love to leave behind of Shakur is a rogue criminal who was a member of a terrorist group who evaded justice and now holds a bounty of $2 million on her head. I admit that I haven’t found much information on this living legend. Still, reading her autobiography, watching a few documentaries and interviews, and using her words to understand her pathology paints a much different narrative of who this woman is. And as we should know by now, this country is not invested in teaching the full story of Black history. Shakur’s story deserves more than a weak retelling from a country that actively targeted her for destruction.

To begin to tell the story of Assata Shakur, we should begin with her youth. In her autobiography, Shakur explains how she often found herself a student of the streets. Running away to the unpredictability of the street that had, in a way, turned into her own getaway. The unpredictability, however, didn’t come without its dangers. When Shakur wasn’t sleeping in subway hallways, she was befriending strangers who’d allow her refuge, but it always came at a cost. Once she stayed with a young boy until his libido pushed her out; another time, she stayed with a mother and daughter who brought her into their boosting schemes; and she eventually moved on to a cheap motel for a few nights. Here Shakur was able to find work as a barmaid, where she was told her job duties were to “sit and look pretty and keep the customers happy and buying.” She’d hold interesting conversations with mostly older white men as they racked up a tab. Shakur would also find herself the near victim of gang rape, but her determination to escape perilous situations was by this time maturing. This was Shakur’s journey at just the tender age of thirteen.

Luckily, however, Shakur was soon pulled from the street life by her aunt, Evelyn, who would go on to take her in.

Up to this point, Shakur hadn’t been focused on the national Black struggle. Life seemed an adventure that she wanted to witness and experience. The Black liberation struggle, however, had been a bit more distant, appearing to her as angry white mobs on television. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, Martin Luther King Jr, the Little Rock Nine, and other civil rights issues that Shakur may or may not have been able to focus on in detail because she was struggling with her own day-to-day. This isn’t unlike many of our own life stories today, knowing we’re in a “liberation” struggle that seems distant and yet constant while trying to balance “closer” and “more immediate” struggles.

Nonetheless, during the summer when she went to stay with her grandparents down south, Shakur finally had her first personal experience with people who were fighting for Black liberation. It was at an NAACP house, and Shakur explains what struck her the most was the pledge of nonviolence the attendees made that wouldn’t even allow them to react to someone spitting on them. At the time, the nobility she felt the NAACP showed was something to be respected, though she herself knew she couldn’t abide by such a pledge. The “sacrifice,” as it was put, that the NAACP was willing to make to unite the country helped Shakur to feel hope for the future. By Shakur’s account, at this point, she still believed that despite the injustices and degradation Black people in America faced—like being spat on—there was still a chance for a higher understanding and unity between races. Shakur believed that “if white people could go to school with us, live next to us, work next to us, they would see that we were really good people and would stop being prejudiced against us.” However, she would eventually come to have the viewpoint 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. Once you study and really get a good understanding of the way the system in the United States works, then you see without a doubt, that the civil rights movement never had a chance of succeeding. White people, whether it was 1960 or 1980, benefit from the oppression of Black people. Those who believe that the president or the vice-president and the congress and the supreme kourt run this country are sadly mistaken. The almighty dollar is king; those who have the most money control the country and, through campaign contributions, buy and sell presidents, congressmen, and judges, the ones who pass the laws and enforce the laws that benefit their benefactors.

The rich have always used racism to maintain power. To hate someone, to discriminate against them, and to attack them because of their racial characteristics is one of the most primitive, reactionary, ignorant ways of thinking that exists.

A war between the races would help nobody and free nobody and should be avoided at all costs. But a one-sided race war with Black people as the target and white people shooting the guns is worse. We will be criminally negligent, however, if we do not deal with racism and the racist violence, and if we do not prepare to defend ourselves against it.”

Assata an Autobiography pg 139-140

Shakur began to understand this more once she enrolled at Manhattan Community College and was immediately introduced to the Black organization on campus, The Golden Drums. Shakur explained that her life and entire outlook on the world changed as she began to take in the message delivered from this group clad in dashikis and expounding knowledge and history that she’d never known. Shakur was amazed by the spirit of The Golden Drums and the way they showed genuine concern and love for her as a “sister.” Above all, however, their wealth of knowledge caused her to develop a deep passion for knowing the history of Black people. Shakur began to understand the dangers of having Black American history either whitewashed or completely omitted because it would only,

“cause us to make serious mistakes in analyzing our current situation and in planning future action…Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free. Schools in amerika are interested in brainwashing people with amerikanism, giving them a little bit of education, and training them in skills needed to fill the positions the capitalist system requires. As long as we expect amerika’s schools to educate us, we will remain ignorant.”

Assata an Autobiography pg 181

Programs were organized for neighborhood children, and Shakur found her place teaching the history that had been ignored and/or edited. The Golden Drums had the vision that the Black community needed to be educated on emotionally, mentally and spiritually beneficial topics. Even still, Shakur would soon come to realize that as noble as The Golden Drums were with spreading knowledge, she felt she had to begin to take more action in the Black liberation movement. Her motivations soon led her to California, where she began to learn about the many “minority” liberation movements underway. She spent time with the Native Americans who were in the middle of occupying Alcatraz in protest of a land claim. Shakur would also go on to meet with the Brown Berets, a Chicano group that wanted to politicize their L.A. gangs, and the Red Guard, who put up a struggle for Chinatown in San Francisco. Producing more action for Black people would soon lead Shakur to the Black Panther Party in California.

Meeting the chapter in California resonated with Shakur much better than her experiences with the New York chapter. The character and manner in which the New York chapter expressed itself was off-putting for Shakur, so she’d never felt inclined to join the BPP. That inclination didn’t fully mature for Shakur until the murder of Jonathan Jackson, the younger brother of one of the Soledad Brothers. Shakur expressed guilt for the fact that she was alive while this “young brother” had given his life to make a stand. The way forward became much clearer to Shakur after the funeral, and when she returned to New York, she joined the BPP.

Due to the persecution of the Panther 21 at the time, the New York chapter was suffering through a bit of a crisis. Regardless of that, Shakur still felt there was much-needed guidance and a deeper level of global intellect. Shakur was also critical of the Party's forward-thinking when analyzing the self-sacrificing decisions BPP leadership routinely chose versus party preservation tactics. Coming into the Party as it began to “tailspin out of control,” as some would describe it, due to the government targeting it for destruction, Shakur was unable to justify and accept the chaos. No one was aware of COINTELPRO, which worked like a charm to destroy the BPP. As the BPP member list declined, many members began to join the Black Liberation Army, including Shakur.

The “hot points” of the BLA are the reputation of being the more violent splinter group of the BPP. Between 1970 and 1981, seventy incidents have been credited to the BLA, ranging from police killings and injuries, bombings, robberies, and prison escapes. The most notable escape was that of Assata Shakur. The BLA, predominantly stationed in New York, stood for armed struggle against any group they felt threatened a peaceful life for the Black community, which led them to also “deal with” drug dealers. The story of the BLA will always be framed as a terroristic group because they used violence against police (aka America) to get their point across. “Revolutionary appropriations” were taken from banks and armored trucks. Political prisoners were not left behind, and multiple daring prison escapes were made. After the Civil Rights Movement ran out of steam, racial utopia and equality was not “the norm.” There was a further struggle, a much more violent struggle that is now buried while we, in turn, celebrate a passive retelling of the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement “quietly” used men like those in the Deacons for Defense and Justice, but when the singing and marching lost their appeal, the DD&J inspired the warrior mindset of the BPP. Violence should not be condoned, but violence also should not be the needed last resort before cries for change are heard.

Assata Shakur eventually saw only one way forward, and because her time in the BLA has only been documented through the crime reports, it makes it easy for the country to sum Shakur up as an escaped terrorist. The fight for civil rights for Black Americans has always been bloody, with most of the blood spilling from Black Americans. Shakur, as she would say, “struggled” - (make forceful or violent efforts to get free of restraint or constriction) against that.

The Black empowerment movement and its leaders have always been targets in this country. The struggle for equality was violently resisted by this country and produced a violent response from Black people. Examples of this violent resistance include Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr, and Fred Hampton, who were all “struggling” for equality and ended up assassinated in 1963, 1965, and 1969, respectively.

Another example of violent resistance to peaceful Black existence is the Harlem Riot in 1964, which occurred due to 15-year-old James Powell being gunned down by an off-duty officer. In April of 1973 10-year-old Clifford Glover was shot in the back in New York by plain-clothed officers.

After all this bloodshed from Black Americans who struggled to live in an uncivilized country, in May of 1973, a New Jersey officer was killed on a turnpike. This is in no way to insinuate that the New Jersey officer died as “payback,” but it puts into context the war the Black collective felt compelled to struggle in. Just to put into further perspective the era Assata Shakur lived in, in June of 1974, jurors toasted to a victory with the plain-clothed officers they had just acquitted for the murder of 10-year-old Clifford Glover. This is just a small timeline of events, but each bloody event had a major impact on this country and society.

As time revealed, retaliatory violence was not a viable movement, as evident with the BLA. Assata Shakur was charged for the police killing despite her injuries and her positioning in the car, which would have made it impossible for her to shoot the officer. That being said, however, the murderous oppression of this country bred resistance. There could be no pretty way to resist such evil, especially as we still see fragments of that evil baring its teeth today.

Assata Shakur did not want a race war. She actively sought out other racial groups to understand and unite with them. Shakur did not want violence against white people, nor did she hate white people. Shakur was against the oppression caused by a greedy capitalistic society from which most white people benefited. Shakur did not want to terrorize America; she wanted Black communities to be free from terrorism. Some people will never be able to empathize with her viewpoints because they will never be able to understand how any group of people could feel terrorized by this country. For the people who fought for civil rights, fought against police brutality and jurors toasting to victory with acquitted murders, and fought in a movement attempting to protect the Black community while the US government plotted to destroy the organization from the inside out, for these people it is easy for them to say they want a Black community free from terrorism.

Assata Shakur’s legacy cannot be of an escaped criminal. The struggle she was a part of was not pretty, and what she faced was far uglier than anything her descendants face today. The country and society needed to grow, and Shakur fought for that. It’s a double standard for this country to celebrate presidents who held slaves and waged violent campaigns in hopes of “exterminating” the indigenous people of this country, yet we villainize Assata Shakur, who was convicted during an era when 21 Black Panthers spent years proving they were being wrongfully held captive for crimes they didn’t commit.

Assata Shakur’s story and legacy should be held up in Black American history as something we should never forget. It is not being suggested that we pretend everything that she was a part of should be praised as the best practice. However, the movement and organizations she was a part of were needed for this country and society to grow. She’s earned her place in history as a fighter against the terrorism in Black communities that has well been documented.