Assata shakur autobiography kindle
Assata: An Autobiography
November 21, 2024
Most people have heard about Assata Shakur. She was the first woman to be added to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorist list after all. But it seems that most people don't really know much about her. Who she was, what she stood for, where she is now. I've always wanted to learn more about Assata, her beliefs, her activism, and therefore, reading her autobiography seemed like an excellent idea.
[As is now clear, a carefully orchestrated intelligence and counterintelligence campaign was conducted by the FBI in cooperation with state and local law enforcement agencies designed to criminalise, defame, harass, and intimidate Assata (among many other Black activists) beginning at least in 1971. Specifically, evidence suggests that Assata was targeted by an investigation named CHESROB, which “attempted to hook former New York Panther Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur) to virtually every bank robbery or violent crime involving a black woman on the East Coast”.]
In her autobiography, Assata jumps back and forth between two timelines: in the first, she details the aftermath of the shootout with a focus on her trial and subsequent incarceration; in the second, she tells of her childhood, teenage years and how she was politicised in her young adulthood.
Born in Flushing, Queens, she grew up in New York City (with her mother) and Wilmington, North Carolina (with her grandparents). She recalls: “All of my family tried to install in me a sense of personal dignity, but my grandmother and grandfather were really fanatic about it. Over an over they would tell me, ‘You’re as good as anyone else. Don’t let nobody tell you that they’re better than you.’”
However, she often ran away from home, staying with strangers and working for short periods of time. It was absolutely mind-boggling to hear about all of the dangerous situations that she found herself in at such a young age. As a 13-year-old, she stayed at a hotel (convincing the manager that she was an adult) and worked at a racy bar. One of the most horrific events she recalls was the time she was almost gang raped by a group of boys but luckily, managed to escape. Thinking back on that time, she recalls:
[Assata is a West African name, derived from the Arabic name Aisha, which means "she who struggles", while Shakur means “the thankful one" in Arabic. Olugbala, her lesser known middle name, means "savior" in Yoruba.]
In Oakland, Assata worked with the Black Panther Party to organise protests and community education programs. After returning to New York, she led the BPP chapter in Harlem, coordinating the Free Breakfast Program for children, free clinics, and community outreach. In her autobiography, Assata states: “That was the one thing i dug about those days. We were alive and we were excited and we believed that we were going to be free someday. For us, it wasn’t a matter of whether or not. It was a question of how.”
It was interesting to learn about her initial engagement in the Party and how her beliefs aligned with it: “One of the most important things the Party did was to make it really clear who the enemy was: not the white people, but the capitalistic, imperialistic oppressors. They took the Black liberation struggle out of a national context and put it in an international context. The Party supported revolutionary struggles and governments all over the world and insisted the u.s. get out of Africa, out of Asia, out of Latin America, and out of the ghetto too.”
However, she soon left the party, disliking the macho behavior of the men and believing that the BPP lacked knowledge and understanding of the history of Black people in the US. Of that decision, she wrote: “Everything felt different. The easy, friendly openness had been replaced by fear and paranoia. The beautiful revolutionary creativity i had loved so much was gone. And replaced by dogmatic stagnation.”
Between 1971 and 1973, she was charged with several crimes and was the subject of a multi-state manhunt. Even though Assata doesn't go into great detail about all of her trials and the years she spent in prison, I found it remarkable how resilient she was and how she never failed to stand up for herself in face of adversity and keep her dignity despite constant humiliations and efforts to break her. What she recalls of how terribly the prison guards, police officer, doctors, lawyers – the list goes on and on really – treated her, is enough to make one mad and turn one's stomach over. Her inhumane treatment is sickening and devastating.
Among the most horrific events that she had to endure during her confinement are (in my opinion) the time the prison doctor told her that it would be best for everyone and the trial if she had an abortion (I mean ... the audacity of that statement alone!) and when she was beaten and restrained by several large female officers after refusing a medical exam from a prison doctor shortly after giving birth. The total disregard that these people had for her makes me sick.
In May 1973, she was arrested after being wounded in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, while her friend Zayd Malik Shakur was killed. In her autobiography, Assata not only details the horrific arrest and how awfully she was treated by the police officers [e.g.: “Bitch, you’d better open your goddamn mouth or I’ll blow your goddamn head off!”], she also shared the poem that she wrote in memory of her friend Zayd:
After the shooting, she was held at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in New Jersey, and later moved to Rikers Island Correctional Institution for Women in New York City, where she was kept in solitary confinement for 21 months.
In the history of New Jersey, no woman pretrial detainee or prisoner has ever been treated as she was: continuously confined in a men’s prison, under 24-hour surveillance of her most intimate functions, without intellectual sustenance, adequate medical attention, and exercise, and without the company of other women for all the years she was in their custody.
Her only daughter, Kakuya Shakur, was conceived during her trial and born on September 11, 1974. In a moving poem, dedicated to her daughter, she states: “i have shabby dreams for you / of some vague freedom / i have never known.”
What Assata recalls of the trial is infuriating. She says “the panel looked more than a lynch mob than a jury.” And she wasn't wrong: a total of 408 potential jurors were questioned during the voir dire. All of the 15 jurors—10 women and 5 men—were white, and most were under thirty years old. 5 jurors had personal ties to State Troopers (one girlfriend, two nephews, and two friends).
She surfaced in Cuba in 1984, where she was granted political asylum and lives ever since, despite US government efforts to have her returned. In her autobiography, she doesn't talk about her escape at all (...probably for legal reasons) and her time in Cuba also only gets a short postscript chapter. I found that a bit sad because those were two topics that really interested me. Ultimately, that's the reason why I rated this book 4 instead of 5 stars.^^
Assata explains how the Civil War was not fought to free the slaves. It was a war between two economic systems, a war for power and control by two separate actions of the ruling class: rich, white Southern slave owners and rich, white Northern industrialists. The battle was between a plantation slave economy and an industrial manufacturing economy. I found that insight very interesting because, as a German, I hadn't learned much about the Civil War at all but was, formerly, under the impression that the liberation of slaves was its main drive.
In addition to that, I found Assata's belief in communism and her rejection of capitalism refreshing and insightful. At a different point in the book, she wrote: “That’s why i couldn’t see fighting within the system. Both the democratic party and the republican party are controlled by millionaires. They are interested in holding on to their power, while i was interested in taking it away.” That's a struggle that a lot of activist still have today.
It was also refreshing to learn how angry she was at the injustice that marginalised groups faced in the US. Oftentimes, I’m put off by people who only preach nonviolence and don’t have any understanding of why other oppressed people might be angry and pissed off. After Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered, Assata wrote: “I am going to a riot. I want to kill someone.” It is rare to get revolutionaries and activist to be so honest about their innermost feelings.
Her hopefulness for the future is another thing that I found incredibly empowering. In her beginning poem, “Affirmation”, she says: “And i believe that a lost ship, / steered by tired, seasick sailors, / can still be guided home / to port.”, as well as: “And i believe that seeds grow into sprouts. / And sprouts grow into trees.”
Another thing that's, unfortunately, relevant as ever are her musings about the Left: “Arrogance was one of the key factors that kept the white left so fictionalised. I felt that instead of fighting together against a common enemy, they waster time quarrelling with each other about who had the right line.”
She ends her autobiography with one of my favorite quotes from it:
Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.Assata is a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. In 1973, she was convicted of being an accomplice in the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike. She was also the target of the FBI's COINTELPRO.
[As is now clear, a carefully orchestrated intelligence and counterintelligence campaign was conducted by the FBI in cooperation with state and local law enforcement agencies designed to criminalise, defame, harass, and intimidate Assata (among many other Black activists) beginning at least in 1971. Specifically, evidence suggests that Assata was targeted by an investigation named CHESROB, which “attempted to hook former New York Panther Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur) to virtually every bank robbery or violent crime involving a black woman on the East Coast”.]
In her autobiography, Assata jumps back and forth between two timelines: in the first, she details the aftermath of the shootout with a focus on her trial and subsequent incarceration; in the second, she tells of her childhood, teenage years and how she was politicised in her young adulthood.
Born in Flushing, Queens, she grew up in New York City (with her mother) and Wilmington, North Carolina (with her grandparents). She recalls: “All of my family tried to install in me a sense of personal dignity, but my grandmother and grandfather were really fanatic about it. Over an over they would tell me, ‘You’re as good as anyone else. Don’t let nobody tell you that they’re better than you.’”
However, she often ran away from home, staying with strangers and working for short periods of time. It was absolutely mind-boggling to hear about all of the dangerous situations that she found herself in at such a young age. As a 13-year-old, she stayed at a hotel (convincing the manager that she was an adult) and worked at a racy bar. One of the most horrific events she recalls was the time she was almost gang raped by a group of boys but luckily, managed to escape. Thinking back on that time, she recalls:
I had read this play by Sartre. The play ended with the conclusion that hell is other people, and, for a while, i agreed.As a teenager, she was taken in by her mother's sister Evelyn Williams, a civil rights worker, who lived in Manhattan. Evelyn later worked as a lawyer, defending Assata during a lot of her trials.
I was naive in those days. I knew it in theory, but i had not seen enough to accept the fact that there was absolutely no justice whatsoever for Black people in amerika.Assata became involved in political activism at Borough of Manhattan Community College and City College of New York. After graduation, she began using the name Assata Shakur, and briefly joined the Black Panther Party.
[Assata is a West African name, derived from the Arabic name Aisha, which means "she who struggles", while Shakur means “the thankful one" in Arabic. Olugbala, her lesser known middle name, means "savior" in Yoruba.]
In Oakland, Assata worked with the Black Panther Party to organise protests and community education programs. After returning to New York, she led the BPP chapter in Harlem, coordinating the Free Breakfast Program for children, free clinics, and community outreach. In her autobiography, Assata states: “That was the one thing i dug about those days. We were alive and we were excited and we believed that we were going to be free someday. For us, it wasn’t a matter of whether or not. It was a question of how.”
It was interesting to learn about her initial engagement in the Party and how her beliefs aligned with it: “One of the most important things the Party did was to make it really clear who the enemy was: not the white people, but the capitalistic, imperialistic oppressors. They took the Black liberation struggle out of a national context and put it in an international context. The Party supported revolutionary struggles and governments all over the world and insisted the u.s. get out of Africa, out of Asia, out of Latin America, and out of the ghetto too.”
However, she soon left the party, disliking the macho behavior of the men and believing that the BPP lacked knowledge and understanding of the history of Black people in the US. Of that decision, she wrote: “Everything felt different. The easy, friendly openness had been replaced by fear and paranoia. The beautiful revolutionary creativity i had loved so much was gone. And replaced by dogmatic stagnation.”
Between 1971 and 1973, she was charged with several crimes and was the subject of a multi-state manhunt. Even though Assata doesn't go into great detail about all of her trials and the years she spent in prison, I found it remarkable how resilient she was and how she never failed to stand up for herself in face of adversity and keep her dignity despite constant humiliations and efforts to break her. What she recalls of how terribly the prison guards, police officer, doctors, lawyers – the list goes on and on really – treated her, is enough to make one mad and turn one's stomach over. Her inhumane treatment is sickening and devastating.
The foot on my neck is partTherefore, her ability to stand her ground is awe-inspiring. She didn't shy away from calling the prison ward a "bitch" when they refused to call her by her full name. When another guard ordered her to stop pacing around in her cell with the words “I order you to stop running.”, she simply replied: “I don't recall joining your army.”
of a body
Among the most horrific events that she had to endure during her confinement are (in my opinion) the time the prison doctor told her that it would be best for everyone and the trial if she had an abortion (I mean ... the audacity of that statement alone!) and when she was beaten and restrained by several large female officers after refusing a medical exam from a prison doctor shortly after giving birth. The total disregard that these people had for her makes me sick.
In May 1973, she was arrested after being wounded in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, while her friend Zayd Malik Shakur was killed. In her autobiography, Assata not only details the horrific arrest and how awfully she was treated by the police officers [e.g.: “Bitch, you’d better open your goddamn mouth or I’ll blow your goddamn head off!”], she also shared the poem that she wrote in memory of her friend Zayd:
STORYAs with all the poems that Assata shared in her autobiography, her words are powerful and lethal. No matter how long or short the poems were, they all elicited visceral reactions from me. Assata truly has a way with words and to pin-point exactly what she means to express and put her finger into the wound. Her gift is remarkable and I really wish she would publish a book of poetry. I, for my part, would be first in line to buy it.
You died.
I cried.
And kept on getting up.
A little slower.
And a lot more deadly.
After the shooting, she was held at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in New Jersey, and later moved to Rikers Island Correctional Institution for Women in New York City, where she was kept in solitary confinement for 21 months.
In the history of New Jersey, no woman pretrial detainee or prisoner has ever been treated as she was: continuously confined in a men’s prison, under 24-hour surveillance of her most intimate functions, without intellectual sustenance, adequate medical attention, and exercise, and without the company of other women for all the years she was in their custody.
Her only daughter, Kakuya Shakur, was conceived during her trial and born on September 11, 1974. In a moving poem, dedicated to her daughter, she states: “i have shabby dreams for you / of some vague freedom / i have never known.”
What Assata recalls of the trial is infuriating. She says “the panel looked more than a lynch mob than a jury.” And she wasn't wrong: a total of 408 potential jurors were questioned during the voir dire. All of the 15 jurors—10 women and 5 men—were white, and most were under thirty years old. 5 jurors had personal ties to State Troopers (one girlfriend, two nephews, and two friends).
And, if i know anything at all,While serving a life sentence for murder, on November 2, 1979, Assata escaped the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey, when three members of the Black Liberation Army visiting her drew concealed .45-caliber pistols and a stick of dynamite, seized two correction officers as hostages, commandeered a van and escaped. No one was injured during the prison break, including the officers held as hostages who were left in a parking lot.
it’s that a wall is just a wall
and nothing more at all.
It can be broken down.
She surfaced in Cuba in 1984, where she was granted political asylum and lives ever since, despite US government efforts to have her returned. In her autobiography, she doesn't talk about her escape at all (...probably for legal reasons) and her time in Cuba also only gets a short postscript chapter. I found that a bit sad because those were two topics that really interested me. Ultimately, that's the reason why I rated this book 4 instead of 5 stars.^^
I am a Black revolutionary. By that I am that I have declared war on all forces that raped our women, castrated our men, and kept our babies empty-bellied.Overall, Assata kept her autobiography personal and focused on important events in her life. There was only one section were the book became educational: she detailed how misconceptions about Abraham Lincoln as the liberator of slaves are still being taught in schools and at universities, while in fact, in August 1862, Lincoln stated: “If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.
Assata explains how the Civil War was not fought to free the slaves. It was a war between two economic systems, a war for power and control by two separate actions of the ruling class: rich, white Southern slave owners and rich, white Northern industrialists. The battle was between a plantation slave economy and an industrial manufacturing economy. I found that insight very interesting because, as a German, I hadn't learned much about the Civil War at all but was, formerly, under the impression that the liberation of slaves was its main drive.
In addition to that, I found Assata's belief in communism and her rejection of capitalism refreshing and insightful. At a different point in the book, she wrote: “That’s why i couldn’t see fighting within the system. Both the democratic party and the republican party are controlled by millionaires. They are interested in holding on to their power, while i was interested in taking it away.” That's a struggle that a lot of activist still have today.
It was also refreshing to learn how angry she was at the injustice that marginalised groups faced in the US. Oftentimes, I’m put off by people who only preach nonviolence and don’t have any understanding of why other oppressed people might be angry and pissed off. After Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered, Assata wrote: “I am going to a riot. I want to kill someone.” It is rare to get revolutionaries and activist to be so honest about their innermost feelings.
Her hopefulness for the future is another thing that I found incredibly empowering. In her beginning poem, “Affirmation”, she says: “And i believe that a lost ship, / steered by tired, seasick sailors, / can still be guided home / to port.”, as well as: “And i believe that seeds grow into sprouts. / And sprouts grow into trees.”
Another thing that's, unfortunately, relevant as ever are her musings about the Left: “Arrogance was one of the key factors that kept the white left so fictionalised. I felt that instead of fighting together against a common enemy, they waster time quarrelling with each other about who had the right line.”
She ends her autobiography with one of my favorite quotes from it:
Every day out in the street now, i remind myself that Black people in amerika are oppressed. It’s necessary that i do that. People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.Words to live by. Words to remember. Assata spoke the truth. Her resilience is unmatched. Her wisdom infinite. It was a true joy to read her autobiography. The book is empowering and important and can teach us so much. Highly recommend to literally everyone who is interested in the anti-racist movement.