Assata Shakur

Historical Context:

The 1970s was the decade where Black pride and excellence was on the rise. Afros, dashikis and fist combs were more than just fashion, they were statements. Assata Shakur, born JoAnne Chesimard in New York in 1947 evolves into a black revolutionary. She joins the Black Panther Party in 1970 working for education and breakfast programs before being forced underground (Want to Start a Revolution? 140)  as the government begins cracking down on the Party.

Assata Shakur, originally named JoAnne Chesimard, rejects this name given to her as her “slave name.” After college and a marriage, she decides to change her name as she begins to connect with her African roots. Assata: “She who struggles” Olugbala: “Love for the People,”Shakur “the thankful.” She takes the name Shakur out of respect for Zayd and his family.

Shakur is indicted multiple times from 1973-1977 and is finally convicted of multiple charges and sentenced to 33 years in prison. Throughout her life, Shakur experiences continuous abuse and false convictions at the hands of the government. She is shot in the stomach during an altercation. She allegedly attempted armed robbery and was later released on bail. She is suspected in a grenade attack on a patrol car and an additional bank robbery. An FBI manhunt ensues for Shakur after the killings of four police officers by a group from the Black Liberation Army. She is wounded in a shootout with New Jersey police in 1973. One trooper dies in the shootout, another is wounded, Zayd Shakur is killed and Sundiata Acoli escapes but is later captured and sent to prison. In 1975 she is charged with kidnapping a drug dealer for ransom in 1972 along with Rema Olugbala and 19 year old Ronald Myers. During this process before the actual trial, Rema Olugbala dies from supposedly trying to escape from the Brooklyn house of detention. Assata proceeds to go to trial with her friend and lawyer Evelyn. She writes a bomb ass opening statement presenting the many injustices that society has committed since the beginning of time and is then acquitted.

Before her final conviction, Shakur spent 4 years in custody, going through multiple trials and mistrials. She Spent 21 months in solitary confinement. Two years after being sentenced to prison in 1977, she escapes in 1979. In 1984, she is discovered to be in Cuba, where she is granted political asylum and remains there to this day and where she has continued her education at the University of Havana.

Is Open Resistance A Form Of Justice?

By Josh O’Neil

Assata’s Position: 

Assata Shakur is considered, by herself as well as many others, as a Black revolutionary. She refers to herself as such multiple time in her speeches, memoirs and in Assata: An Autobiography. Shakur vehemently voiced outrage and openly resisted what she labeled as injustices and atrocities committed by the United States government against “her” people. Shakur views the U.S. government as oppressive and corrupt, focusing on the self-interests of the rich at the expense of the well being of minority communities.

Shakur does not see the government as a protector or fair and equal enforcer of the Law. She regularly places the United States government and law enforcement agencies in juxtaposition with justice, citing the pardoning of Nixon after Watergate and the Pentagon Papers as a major example: “Nixon was pardoned without ever standing trial or being found guilty of a crime or spending a day in jail” (Assata: An Autobiography, pg. 166). Shakur cited other discrepancies between the government/law enforcement’s practice of “just” law and the hypocrisy of calling Shakur and her fellow revolutionaries murderers, criminals, thieves and thugs. During her opening statement of her defense speech during her trial for multiple counts of murder, kidnapping and bank robbery among other things, Shakur mentions the discrepancy between how wealthy or political figures who break the law are subject to a different standard than “common” criminals. She repeatedly asks in this defense speech “Where is the justice in this?” referring to the many examples of young, minority men and women who were mistreated and/or arrested and imprisoned for crimes that seem much less severe or grand than those of the wealthy or political elite.

Shakur also refers to the history of America’s abuse and mistreatment of people of color, claiming that, though justice is seen as an American ideal it is not the “amerikan dream” (Assata: An Autobiography, pg. 50). Given the fact that Assata Shakur grew up during and after the Civil Rights movement and became politically active during the Black Awakening, she witnessed and was the subject of many acts of racism and police brutality. She saw and continues to see her people being legally oppressed and brutalized by police and the government, hence the reason she joined the BPP and later the BLA. From her writings and recorded statements it is clear that Shakur views the United States government as a repressive regime and that it is up to the People, particularly oppressed and marginalized people, to fight for justice. As mentioned before, Shakur regularly defended the actions of her fellow revolutionaries, claiming to be fighting for freedom and the protection and advancement of her “Black and Brown brothers and sisters”, fighting and exercising the very ideals that were outlined in the Constitution of the United States while those in power continuously worked against them (Assata: An Autobiography, pgs. 50-53 & 166-171).

Josh’s Response:

I believe it is clear that Assata Shakur views the U.S. government, and law enforcement in particular, in a negative light. Shakur rarely, if ever, credits the government for being progressive or moving in the right direction, focusing on the abundance of instances where the U.S. has abused minorities and committed outright atrocities against ethnic groups. Looking at the history of the United States, and I mean looking deep considering the fact that most of the atrocities are glossed over or ignored completely, one can see how the events and past actions of the U.S. government have shaped and continue to shape the future.

There is, in fact, a pattern of abuse and neglect by the government throughout U.S. history. Slavery and genocide are the most glaring examples, and the U.S. has even (mostly) acknowledged that these were, in fact, wrong. However, even after slavery was abolished, American Indians were still being massacred and evicted from land they had inhabited for generations, Jim Crow conquered the South, being Black became a crime and people of color were segregated and treated like second-class citizens. I feel that it is important to note that it was not the government that initiated action or a movement for change, it was the people. Abolitionists, Civil Rights activists, women suffragists, union workers/laborers are all regular citizens voicing dissent and fighting for rights and justice.

Dr. King marched peacefully for freedom and justice and he was a preacher from Atlanta, Georgia. His protests were always peaceful and were normally met with violent opposition by elements of the U.S. Government. This violent response to protests for freedom and justice, I believe, is the normal response to actual justice; attempts at fairness and exercising civil and human rights. The Civil Rights movement, though it is one of the most famous cases of peaceful protests being met with violence, was not the only movement to be violently repressed by law enforcement and the government. During the AIDS epidemic of the 80s, thousands of gay and bisexual men marched for better public health policies and medicine for HIV/AIDS and they faced violent repression. Antiwar protests during the 60s were often met with violent resistance by riot police and elements of the National Guard, with some cases ending in bloodshed and even death as was the case in the Kent State protests in 1970.

Even now, peaceful protests are met with violent and even militant responses by elements of the U.S. government. The intensity of the police and security responses to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests in 2016-2017, as well as the Black Lives Matter protests in Baltimore, Ferguson, etc are current examples of this violent, yet normal, response to peaceful protests. Legislation is being introduced that will criminalize peaceful protests, bringing us dangerously close to living in an repressive, autocratic state. Assata Shakur made many good points regarding the U.S. government and its inconsistencies with standing up for justice: Slavery, genocide, internment camps and needless killing of people in countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam War are just a few of the many instances of the government being unjust. I agree with her stance on who needs to fight for justice. The preamble of the U.S. Constitution begins with “We The People”. I believe the evidence overwhelmingly points to the idea of “We The People” needing to resist our government in order to achieve justice and progress.

Have humans really progressed? Have we learned from our mistakes?

By Sarah Sweetapple

Assata’s Position:

Assata Shakur has not only been unjustly imprisoned for crimes which she has not committed, but has also been mistreated as a black woman, a black revolutionary, fighting repeated cycles of injustice against her people. Shakur in her taped statement “To My People” made on July 4, 1973, and in her opening statement in 1975 puts forth the many injustices that have been committed by the white man on others from the beginning of time. Throughout these different eras, it is always the victims who have been done wronged that are accused of wrongdoing.

Shakur, prior to making her opening statement has lived a life of struggle. Struggling for her people, stolen from Africa, it is they (blacks) who have been brandished kidnappers, stealers, and murders by the biggest hypocrites of these crimes against humanity. Through imperialism colonization and slavery “we were robbed of our language, of our Gods, of our culture, of our human dignity, of our labor, and of our lives(55).” The mistreatment that has been synonymous (reword) with her living as a black person and a woman and together something frightful to the white patriarchal status quo, is seen in her restrictions in childhood from her grandma telling her to only play with the “nice” children to the racial profiling prompting the stop of her vehicle on the New Jersey Turnpike and escalating into a shootout in which she is shot and beaten. It is seen in the officers’ lack for viewing her as a person in the hospital, chaining her to her bed, accusing her of multiple crimes, her experience in workhouses and other institutions of confinement that imprison “90 percent of Black and Third World people who can afford neither bail nor lawyers (51).” All these undeserved struggles that her and he people have suffered from leads her to say in her opening statement that “Justice in my eyesight has not been the amerikan dream, it has been the amerikan nightmare.”  

Knowing injustice, seeing injustice, and feeling the injustices, Shakur identifies herself as a black revolutionary and this status automatically makes her part of the Black Liberation Army which is “not an organization,” but rather “a concept, a people’s movement…an idea emerging from conditions in Black communities that came about because Black people are not free or equal in this country (169)” and have never been. She calls on blacks to join in the fight for change, and outlines the necessity of action in revolution. “We must create shields to protect us and spears to penetrate our enemies (52).” The enemies whom have been labeled as such are the ones that paint the black community, especially those who rise up within it as “militant” and  destructive. These people in authority, who make up the government and who oversee societal order have gone on a “witch-hunt justice for the people they consider militants (168).” The murders of black revolutionaries are always overshadowed by the much fewer instances of “pigs killed in the so-called line of duty (51).”

“If there was such a thing as justice, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now (170).” Assata has never known a life of justice. She rejects her given name, Joanne Chesimard as a slave name and thus changes it to Assata Olugbala Shakur in her process of self-liberation. She comes to learn that the institution that unjustly and disproportionately imprisons people of color are essentially extensions of slavery, as outlined in the 13th amendment to the Constitution. She is committed to the fight for freedom and knows that until this is accomplished, that the Black Liberation Army will continue to exist, as “Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon, we are created by our conditions, shaped by our oppression. Conditions, always bleak for the “othered” cause her to remain committed to the fight for freedom and end of oppression, and she believes this is necessary and is even written in by the people who are in charge, the people who have not yet changed.”That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness (169-170).”  

Sarah’s Response:

I agree with Assata Shakur in that injustices have been committed by certain bodies and that these injustices have targeted other bodies, mostly non-white, people of color, or anyone deviating from the norm in appearance beliefs, and thoughts.

It appears that history has fallen into a cycle of wrongdoing and subsequently supposed “learning” from mistakes, only for those wrongs to be reproduced but in a different, more concealed configuration. In some respects, I believe that we have actually learned from our mistakes, however I think that we as a people in general have not allowed ourselves to be fully vulnerable to the fact of committing or being complicit in immoral acts thereby making ourselves unable to accept total accountability.

Much wrongdoing in society fosters from the idea of power and strive for superiority which has led to the desire for humankind to try to outdo each other. In intending for a better life for the self or one’s group, those that fall outside have been continuously put in the position of the conquered and thus reduced to objects that can be controlled and possessed. Once people justify actions of governing people and this way of life is repeated without successfully challenging the acts, the once foreign actions become normative and thus harder to deviate from even though morality has been compromised. For example, imperialism has been going on since the early days of voyages to the New World and even dating back before the Common Era to when Egypt was ruled by a Pharaoh. This grasp of power is apparently not enough for the ego and transforms into colonization and other means of power enforcements, such as slavery.

Shakur in her taped statement draws upon the fact that blacks have been kidnapped from Africa and used for labor. Slavery became a justified system by law and norm. And it wasn’t until the system was long in effect that some of the doers challenged its morality and justness. It took a revolution to legally abolish the institution, which after its “death” lived on through Black codes and continues to live on through the 13th amendment making it legal by punishment and influencing who becomes the punished. However, it would be a disservice to discredit the existence of any improvements. Although much improvement needs to come legally, socially and economically, we have begun to make steps toward social equity.

It is arguable that hateful crimes like genocides have been surpassed for the most part. The Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, along with internment camps that confined people of Japanese descent are all now unallowable and viewed on a global scale as crimes against humanity. However, all of this discrimination and othering has been witnessed in the legal segregation which remained in effect until the mid-20th century in the U.S., apartheid which lasted until a switch in power in 1994 in South Africa, and  racism and sexism that is concealed and intertwined in the uneven police shootings of unarmed black males, unequal pay of woman in the workforce, and the regulation and negative perceptions of certain bodies.

“They call us thieves, but we did not murder millions of Indians by ripping off their homeland then call ourselves pioneers (51).” Shakur is referencing to the white man in her opening statement addressed to “her people.” Alluding to when Columbus and other Europeans arrived  in the U.S. and pushed out those already settled, the statements Shakur is dishing out is still evident today and most prominently in Standing Rock concerning the Dakota Access Pipeline. The only difference between then and now is that others who are not members or identity as Native Americans have joined in the resistance, both in forms of protest and solidarity. So, even though history has reinvented itself, there is more concern and more questioning of morality. Yet, “we who are robbing Africa, Asia, and Latin America of its resources and freedom while people who live there are sick and starving (51)” still occurs. Globalization has justified American wealth, but has simultaneously informed the citizens of exploitation.  

“The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives (50).” We as humans can only learn from our mistakes if we view our mistakes as wrongdoing and that which holds people accountable and those people then accept responsibility and transition to right the past wrongs. Until that happens we will not fully progress. America will remain the amerikkka “trying to lynch” the “others” falsely narrated.

Sources

Gore, D. F., Theoharis, J., & Woodard, K. (2009). Want to start a revolution?: radical women in the Black freedom struggle. New York: New York University Press.

Shakur, A. (1987). Assata: an autobiography. Chicago, IL: L. Hill.