Assata Olugbala Shakur (born July 16, 1947 as JoAnne Deborah Byron, married name Chesimard) is an African-American activist who was a member...
In May 1973 Shakur was allegedly involved in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, during which New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and BLA member Zayd Malik Shakur were killed and Shakur and Trooper James Harper were wounded. Between 1973 and 1977, Shakur was indicted in relation to six other alleged criminal incidents—charged with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery, and kidnapping—resulting in three acquittals and three dismissals. In 1977, she was convicted of the first-degree murder of Foerster and of seven other felonies related to the shootout.
Shakur was then incarcerated in several prisons, where her treatment drew criticism from some human rights groups. She escaped from prison in 1979 and has been living in Cuba in political asylum since 1984. Since May 2, 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has classified her as a "domestic terrorist" and offered a $1 million reward for assistance in her capture. Attempts to extradite her have resulted in letters to the Pope and a Congressional resolution. Shakur is the step-aunt of the deceased hip hop icon Tupac Shakur (the sister of his stepfather, Mutulu Shakur). Her life has been portrayed in literature, film and song.
Shakur was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York City on July 16, 1947, where she lived for three years with her parents and grandparents, Lula and Frank Hill. After her parents divorced in 1950, she spent most of her childhood in Wilmington, North Carolina, with her grandmother until her family relocated to Queens when she was a teenager. For a time, she ran away from home and lived with strangers until she was taken in by her aunt, Evelyn Williams, later her lawyer. She dropped out of high school, but later—with her aunt's help—earned a general equivalency diploma (GED). She attended Borough of Manhattan Community College and then the City College of New York (CCNY) in the mid 1960s, where she was involved in many political activities, protests, and sit-ins.
On April 6, 1971, Shakur was shot in the stomach during a struggle with a guest at the Statler Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan and was arrested on a string of charges. According to police, Shakur knocked on the door of a room occupied by an out-of-town guest and asked "Is there a party going on here?" to which the occupant responded in the negative. Shakur then allegedly displayed a revolver and a struggle ensued, during which she was shot. She was booked on charges of attempted robbery, felonious assault, reckless endangerment, and possession of a deadly weapon, then released on bail.[21] Shakur is alleged to have said that she was glad that she had been shot since now that she had experienced what it was like she was no longer afraid to be shot again.
Following an August 23, 1971, bank robbery in Queens, Shakur was sought for questioning, and a photograph of a woman (who was later alleged to be Shakur) with thick rimmed black glasses, a high hairdo pulled tightly over her head, and a steadily pointed gun became ubiquitous in banks and full page print ads paid for by the New York Clearing House Association. On December 21, 1971, Shakur was named as one of four suspects by New York City police in a hand grenade attack that destroyed a police car and slightly injured two patrolmen in Maspeth, Queens; a 13 state alarm was issued three days after the attack when a witness identified Shakur and Andrew Jackson from FBI photographs. Atlanta law enforcement officials said that Shakur and Jackson had lived together for several months in Atlanta, Georgia, in the summer of 1971.
Shakur was one of those wanted for questioning for wounding a police officer attempting to serve a traffic summons in Brooklyn on January 26, 1972 . After a March 1, 1972 $89,000 Brooklyn bank robbery, a Daily News headline asked: "Was that JoAnne?"; Shakur was also wanted for questioning after a further September 1, 1972 Bronx bank robbery. Msgr. John Powis alleged that Shakur was involved in an armed robbery at his Our Lady of the Presentation church in Brownsville, Brooklyn, on September 14, 1972, based on FBI photographs.
In 1972, Shakur was the subject of a nationwide manhunt after the FBI alleged that she was the "revolutionary mother hen" of a Black Liberation Army cell that had conducted a "series of cold-blooded murders of New York City police officers", including the "execution style murders" of New York Police Officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones on May 21, 1971 and Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie on January 28, 1972. Shakur was alleged to have been directly involved with the Foster and Laurie murders, and involved with the Piagentini and Jones murders. Some sources go further, identifying Shakur as the de facto leader and the "soul of the Black Liberation Army" after the arrest of cofounder Dhoruba Moore. Robert Daley, Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Police, for example, described Shakur as "the final wanted fugitive, the soul of the gang, the mother hen who kept them together, kept them moving, kept them shooting".
Read More HERE
www.assatashakur.org
Check the 'Hands Off Assata' campaign HERE
No comments