Assata Olugbala Shakur: A Warrior of the Liberation Struggle has Joined the Ancestors

Assata Olugbala Shakur was born JoAnne Deborah Byron on July 16, 1947 in New York City, to parents Carl Byron, an accountant, and Doris Johnson, a schoolteacher.  After her parents divorced soon after her birth, Assata lived with her mother, her aunt Evelyn Williams, maternal grandmother Lulu Hill, and maternal grandfather Frank Hill, in the Bricktown section of Jamaica, Queens, New York. At three years old, in 1950 Assata moved with her grandparents to Wilmington, North Carolina to live in the house where her grandfather grew up. Her grandparents opened a small business on land owned by the family called Freeman’s Beach, catering to Black families who were forbidden to go to segregated white beaches and resorts. Throughout her childhood, she lived between her mother and her aunt Evelyn in New York, usually spending summers in the South with her grandparents.

Assata’s lived experiences with Jim Crow segregation in the South, and racism and sexism in the North strongly impacted her later life. Assata attended various schools growing up, including a two-room school on Red Cross Street in Wilmington, and the predominantly white P.S. 154 and later Parsons Junior High School in Queens, and Cathedral High School, an all-girls Catholic school in Manhattan, New York. She eventually enrolled in Manhattan Community College. Her exposure to people of different class backgrounds, especially within Black communities, sharpened her analysis and critique of both anti-Blackness and internalized oppression. As her revolutionary Black consciousness grew, she began to identify as an African woman: “My mind, heart and soul had gone back to Africa, but my name was still stranded in Europe somewhere.” In 1971, she decided to get rid of her “slave name,” and chose the name Assata, “she who struggles,” Olugbala, “love for the people,” Shakur “the thankful” in honor of her comrade Zayd Malik Shakur’s family.

Assata always said that the movement did more for her than she did for the movement. Of course, one might disagree, but clearly, they transformed each other. While attending Manhattan Community College and the City College of New York in the 1960s, she encountered revolutionary ideas, artists, and activists. Immersing herself in the political culture of Harlem at the time, she met organizers of the Republic of New Africa, became a leader of the Black Panther Party, and a founder of the Black Liberation Army.  She also met Black communists and said she became a socialist.

All these organizations shared the common goal of the liberation of Black people and were targeted by the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), whose aim was to undermine and destroy, especially Black-led organizations, their leaders and their cadres. People were killed, terrorized, charged and convicted of crimes they did not commit. Assata became a key target of COINTELPRO. 

In 1973, Assata and two of her comrades, Sundiata Acoli and Zayd Malik Shakur, were stopped and harassed by state troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike. A shoot out occurred and when the dust settled, Assata was shot, and Zayd and a state trooper lay dead. After fighting for her life in the hospital, Assata was jailed, falsely accused, tried, and acquitted or had charges dismissed in six different “criminal cases.” While in prison she fought for the right to give birth to her beloved daughter, Kakuya, who was born in 1974. At a final trial for the turnpike incident, Assata was charged and found guilty of the murder of her comrade Zayd and the state trooper. With no evidence that she fired a weapon, an all-white jury convicted her and she was sentenced to life plus thirty-three years in 1977. Her lawyer, Lennox Hinds, said her trial was a modern day lynching. In 1979, with the help of committed comrades, she escaped from prison!

After a few years underground, Assata applied for political asylum, according to international law, in Cuba. The Cuban government understood she had been imprisoned because of her political activities and granted her full residency on the island, which guaranteed healthcare, housing, education and freedom. While there, she connected with the Cuban people and found community especially with Cubans of African descent. Always an artist, she finally had the opportunity to study, teach and produce visual art. She wrote Assata, An Autobiography in 1987. The book is still in print, has been translated into many languages, and is taught in high schools, colleges and universities throughout the world.

Exile was extremely difficult emotionally for Assata. When asked about her integration into Cuban society, she said, “it was hard. I’m your basic Black sister from the states, and I miss my people. I miss my music. I miss the culture. I miss the verbal interchange. I miss my ebonics…the hardest pain for me is the separation from my daughter and separation from my family…Communication is hard. There is nothing in life harder than being separated from my child and my grand[children].”

In 2013, the FBI put Assata on their Most Wanted Terrorist List and, along with the State of New Jersey, issued a 2 million dollar bounty on her head, which is illegal according to international law. Assata, her family, and all of us who love her thank the Cuban government and its people for keeping her safe, productive, and free in spite of US government demands for her return and illegal attempts to capture her. As Assata said, she was a “20th century escaped slave” who successfully fled and continued to thrive. Brava, dear sister!

Our beautiful sister Assata transitioned from this plane of existence on September 25, 2025 in Havana, Cuba. Her spirit lives on in the hearts of her beloved daughter Kakuya Shakur, her son-in-law Kedar Coleman, grandchildren Diata Coleman, Che Coleman and Savannah Shakur-Coleman; and her sister Beverly Goins. Her legacy will be carried on by the millions of people whose lives she touched through her writing, poetry, visual art, and the example she set of life-long commitment to the struggle for the liberation of her people.

Assata’s words from a 1973 message, “To My People,” are now a rallying cry for millions around the world resisting state violence and fighting for the dignity of Black lives:

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.

Lisa Brock (PhD) has been a long-time activist in the Chicago area. She was born and raised in Glendale, Ohio and holds a BA in history from Howard University and a doctorate in history from Northwestern University. She served as chair of the Humanities, History, and Social Sciences department at Columbia College Chicago and as the founding Academic Director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College, Michigan. She has been involved in solidarity work for Cuba for over four decades. She was close to Assata Shakur. 

Tracye Matthews (PhD)  is a curator, filmmaker, and historian who bridges academia, public history, museums, and documentary film. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago, having previously been a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow.

A Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Assata Shakur can be found here.