Feminist to Know: Assata Shakur
Assata Shakur is a Black power activist, poet, and revolutionary leader who was primarily active during the 1970s. As a key member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), she fought against systemic racism, police brutality, and state violence. Her work has always centered a Black feminist and anti-capitalist vision of collective liberation.
Born in Queens, New York, and raised in the Jim Crow-era American South, Shakur grew up in a family that instilled in her values of self-respect, dignity, and resistance to oppression. Shakur later dropped out of high school, moved back to New York with a low-paying union job, and began learning about the history of liberation movements, starting with early criticism of the Vietnam War.
By the early 1970s, she had changed her name from JoAnne Deborah Byron to Assata Olugbala Shakur, reclaiming an African identity erased by the history of enslavement and systemic racism. Reflecting on this transformation, Shakur stated, “I didn't feel like no JoAnne, or no Negro, or no amerikan. I felt like an African woman.” Shakur joined both the Black Panther Party and the BLA, quickly becoming a prominent figure. Her activism coincided with the FBI’s aggressive COINTELPRO program, which targeted Black power leaders and movements, including the assassination of Fred Hampton in 1969 and the arrest of Angela Davis in 1970. Despite this hostile environment, Shakur was known within activist circles for centering the voices and contributions of Black women, infusing the Black liberation movement with a feminist perspective. Journalist Robert Daley described her as the “mother hen that kept [the BLA] fighting.”
Shakur’s life and legacy is defined by her conviction for the 1973 murders of state trooper Werner Foerster and BLA member Zayd Malik Shakur. While Assata Shakur was indeed at the scene of this crime (and even sustained a bullet wound herself), she has never wavered in maintaining her innocence. Despite this, Shakur was convicted in 1977 of the murder (and a number of assault charges). In 1979, with the help of BLA comrades, Shakur escaped from prison and fled to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum and remains a fugitive from the U.S. government. Her arrest and fugitive status are considered an effort of the state to vilify and suppress Black radical thought.
In 2013, Shakur made the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted list at the age of 66. Her 1987 memoir Assata: An Autobiography provided an alternative narrative to the events of the late 70s and provided a feminist, fugitive manifesto that has influenced resistance movements, culture, and history since. Despite her exile, Shakur remains an influential and important figure, in particular through her iconic lines: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and support one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”