Assata Shakur, the revolutionary, writer, mother, and symbol of resistance for generations, has passed away in Havana, Cuba. She was 78 years old.
Born JoAnne Deborah Byron, Assata’s life was marked by a deep commitment to Black liberation. A member of both the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, she became one of the most recognized freedom fighters of her time. And for more than 40 years, she lived in political exile, watched from afar, studied in classrooms, and revered in community spaces as a living reminder that the fight for justice is rarely simple and never safe.
In 1973, Assata was involved in a confrontation on the New Jersey Turnpike that left one state trooper dead. She was captured, tried, and convicted in a case that’s been contested ever since. She always maintained her innocence, and many believed her trial was deeply flawed. Shaped by the surveillance, fear, and political targeting of the COINTELPRO era. She escaped prison in 1979 and was granted asylum in Cuba, where she lived the rest of her life.
But she was never forgotten.
Her autobiography, ASSATA, published in 1987, became a cornerstone text in Black homes, schools, salons, and movement spaces. Her name was sung in songs, lifted in poems, studied in freedom schools, and etched into the memory of a generation that found in her story a mirror and a warning. For decades, she stood as proof that the government would do anything to silence Black dissent and that some voices are too powerful to erase.
Assata Shakur was not a myth. She was a woman. A survivor. A truth teller. A symbol of what it means to stand up, speak out, and never bow down.
She gave language to a generation trying to name its pain. She gave courage to those still finding their voice. And she reminded us that being Black and free in America has never been a passive thing.
Assata Shakur died free. And the fire she lit will keep burning for generations.
Cover photo: Assata Shakur Has Joined the Ancestors / Photo Credit: Newsday