Assata Shakur and Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) Symbolized the Transformation of the Black Struggle

Shakur and al-Amin came out of the African American youth movement in the South as well as the North

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Sunday March 1, 2026

African American History Month Series No. 10

Assata Shakur (formerly known as Joanne Chesimard) and Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (also known as H. Rap Brown) passed away during 2025 amid the rise of state repression and fascism in the United States under the government of President Donald Trump.

Shakur had joined the movement as a college student at the Borrough of Manhattan Community College and the City College of New York where she worked with an organization focused on the promotion of African American culture and history.

It was during this period in 1969-70 when she came into contact with the Black Panther Party in NYC. The Panthers were under fierce attack by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), whose Director, J. Edgar Hoover, had labeled the BPP as the greatest threat to U.S. national security in decades.

In April 1969, 21 members of the Party were arrested and charged with plotting to carry out bombings around the New York area. The local police in New York, like in many other cities, followed the lead of the FBI by viewing the Panthers as an existential threat to their existence. 

Numerous police-provoked confrontations with Party members along with other militant groupings resulted in the injuring and deaths of law-enforcement agents. These clashes between the police and African Americans occurred during and in the aftermath of urban rebellions which swept the U.S. between 1964-1970. 

Of course, these rebellions and confrontations with the state and its agents did not take place within a political vacuum. In many areas of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, mass and armed struggles were being waged for national independence and socialism. 

Consequently, people within the African American community were influenced by the African, Latin American and Asian movements for liberation. Some of these movements utilized petitioning, mass demonstrations and strikes to reach their objectives. Others, after meeting harsh repression, such as the massacre of dock workers in Guinea-Bissau in 1959 and the anti-pass campaigners at Sharpeville, South Africa in 1960, turned to guerilla warfare in their campaigns to win independence. 

The Black Liberation Army (BLA), which grew out of the Black Panther Party in 1971, was a direct outcome of political repression and the refusal of the U.S. capitalist system to fundamentally address the national oppression and class exploitation suffered by African Americans and millions of other working people. As the 1970s progressed, revolutionaries and other progressive forces were forced to grapple with the rapid rise in technology and its impact not only on politics but the social psychology of workers and oppressed peoples.

A statement issued by the BLA in 1976 provides their rationale for viewing armed struggle as a logical outcome of the social character of African American oppression during this time period where in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the defeat of U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia, the ruling class was facing a deeper and more protracted crisis. Assata, having lived underground for two years, was captured in May 1973 in New Jersey. One other BLA leader and cadre, Sundiata Acoli, was captured along with Assata Shakur. Zayd Malik Shakur was killed by the New Jersey State Troopers during the same traffic stop which captured Assata and Sundiata. (https://newafrikan77.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/zayd-malik-shakur-servant-of-the-people/)

According to the BLA document from 1976, it says:

How will the movement as a whole be able to fight the oppressor in the future when all other ‘legal’ methods are completely exhausted? How will we implement political struggle without the machinery and capacity for revolutionary violence when it is abundantly clear that our oppressor maintains armed organs of violence for the enforcement of his rules? We as a movement will be unable to fight in the future if we do not develop the capacity for revolutionary violence in the present. But revolutionary violence is not an alternative to mass movement and organization, it is complementary to mass struggle, it is another front in the total liberation process.” (http://www.assatashakur.org/message.htm)

Assata was liberated from maximum security prison in New Jersey on November 2, 1979. The action was carried out by the BLA and the Weather Underground Organization (WOU). Several years later Assata was granted political asylum in Revolutionary Cuba.

Her transition came amid an escalation in imperialist destabilization efforts by the Trump administration. A close ally of Cuba, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, was subjected to an unprovoked attack and kidnapping of President Nicholas Maduro and First Lady Cecilia Flores who are being held illegally in a federal detention facility in New York. 

Avenues of redress within the bourgeois democratic system are severely restricted. The same ideological and strategic questions which surfaced during the 1970s remain today although with deeper implications for those living inside and outside the U.S.

Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin: A Lifetime of Resistance

Born during World War II as many other activists who emerged during the 1960s, Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin made his transition after being incarcerated unjustly for more than a quarter-century. In 2000, al-Amin was arrested and accused in the shooting of two Fulton County Sheriff Deputies, one fatally. 

Although there was no material evidence that al-Amin committed these shootings, he was convicted and sentenced to prison.

During the 1960s, thousands of African American youth and students took leading roles in the struggles to destroy legalized segregation in the South as well as the North. Known then as H. Rap Brown, he would join the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG) in Washington, D.C. NAG was an affiliate of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed in April 1960. 

Brown (al-Amin) had been a student at Southern University in Louisiana where he was born. He became active in the movement like many others throughout the South. By 1966, he was active in doing field work in Greene County, Alabama. This was the time when the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) and others had united to build the Alabama Black Panther Party. 

After the chairmanship of Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) for SNCC during 1966-67, Rap took over the organization. His tenure coincided with a rise in urban rebellions throughout the U.S. Due to the revolutionary trajectory of SNCC by 1966-67, the organization became more of a target of the FBI Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) which was designed to disrupt and liquidate African American organizations.

The work of SNCC in the South influenced many northern-based organizations such as the Black Panther Party for Self Defense formed by Dr. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in October 1966. Other groups such as the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and the Deacons for the Defense would emerge to address the reality of oppression and state violence. Robert F. Williams and Mabel Williams began organizing rifles clubs in Monroe, North Carolina to defend the community against racist violence as early as the 1950s. 

Al-Amin was said to have gone underground in March 1970 after the violent deaths of Ralph Featherstone and William Che Payne of SNCC in car blast in Maryland. Many in the movement believed that the two SNCC organizers were assassinated while the corporate media and the authorities accused them of transporting a bomb in order to disrupt the trial of al-Amin Cambridge. (https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/who-killed-ralph-featherstone)

In 1971 al-Amin was captured in New York City and prosecuted on trumped up robbery charges. When he emerged from incarceration he had converted to Islam. He would continue to engage in religious activities settling in Atlanta and opening a neighborhood mosque and grocery store.

The fact that he died in prison of illnesses that could have been effectively treated with proper medical care illustrates the unjust character of the U.S. criminal justice system. The lesson of Imam Jamil’s life is his resilience and commitment to revolutionary change.

Resistance and Historical Studies

This year, 2026, is important as it relates to African American history. There is a concerted effort in the year of the centenary of African American History Month to reverse even the minimal gains made through the various struggles during the 20th and early 21st centuries. 

As the generation of Assata Shakur and Jamil Abdullah al-Amin was faced with imperialist war in Vietnam and throughout the African continent, today’s youth are being forced to engage in the battle against the cost of war. Attempts to eliminate nations and peoples while denigrating their national and regional life is creating instability on an international level.

The focus in the third decade of the 21st Century is international. The ruling class from both political camps in the U.S. are committed to the subjugation of the peoples of the Global South. Therefore, the task of the majority of the world’s population is to take up the mantle of the legacies of Assata and Rap to continue the process of total liberation. 

MLK Legacy Remains Relevant Today

After one year of the Trump administration people in the United States and internationally are mobilizing against the rising threats of fascism and imperialist war

By Abayomi Azikiwe

Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Sunday January 25, 2026

Political Review

This year represented the 40th anniversary of the official adoption of the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as an annual federal holiday.

Every January on the third Monday of the month is designated as MLK Day where federal office buildings and other public entities are closed in recognition of the contributions of Dr. King as a historical figure integral to the struggle for Civil Rights and peace in the United States. 

The proclamation of this federal holiday did not come about spontaneously. After King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, the late former U.S. Congressman John Conyers, Jr. of Detroit initiated the first bill aimed at creating the holiday. However, it would take nearly two decades for the proposal to become a reality. 

Thousands would rally in Washington, D.C. during the early 1980s demanding that MLK’s birthday be made a federal holiday. Stevie Wonder, the internationally renowned recording artist whose career was launched by Motown Records, released a song in honor of King and performed it at huge gatherings at the Lincoln Memorial.  

On January 19 there were hundreds of events commemorating the life, times and contributions of Dr. King. Many of the same issues which MLK was engaged in during the period between 1955-1968 remain today on a domestic and international level. 

In the United States, the current administration has ramped up the repressive and imperialist militaristic policies which made the state what it has become over the centuries. The degree to which democracy exists in the U.S. has been dependent upon the movements for national liberation, workers rights, civil rights and economic emancipation. 

Consequently, the federal holiday honoring Dr. King should be utilized to advance the struggle for complete freedom in the 21st century. Progressive forces note that to honor the legacy of MLK and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole, the present-day organizations must complete the struggles which arose during the post-World War II period to the present.

Detroit Honors Six Decades of Mass Struggle in the U.S. and Worldwide

At the Historic St. Matthew’s-St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church the 23rd Annual Detroit MLK Day Rally/March and Community meal was held as usual on the official federal holiday of Monday January 19. The event filled up the sanctuary and the fellowship hall of the religious institution. 

Banners and posters of MLK, Fannie Lou Hamer and Viola Liuizzo, evoking the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, hung in the Church sanctuary. A large banner calling for the United States to leave the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela where the President Nicholas Maduro and First Lady Cicilia Flores were kidnapped and illegally imprisoned in New York City. There was another banner calling for the end of the genocide in Gaza and the liberation of Palestine.

This Church extends back to the mid-19th century in Detroit and played a role in the Underground Railroad. During the 1920s it served as a base for the local branch of the NAACP as well as for meetings in efforts to defend Dr. Ossian Sweet who was facing an extended prison tenure for defending his home against a racist white mob in 1925. By 1966, when the first Northern High School strike was held, the Church opened for volunteers to hold classes from anti-racist and pro-Black perspectives.

The Annual MLK event was conceived in 2004 during the height of the U.S. imperialist occupation of Iraq and Haiti. This event was founded by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) with the expressed intent of continuing the civil rights, social justice, anti-war, peace and anti-poverty legacy of Dr. King and his contemporaries. The event was initially held at the Central United Methodist Church from 2004 to 2018. It was moved to its present location in 2019.

This year’s commemoration featured SEIU Home Care workers who have won a major concession from the bosses. These activities by workers are reminiscent of the labor struggles which Dr. King immersed himself in during the 1960s. 

Cultural workers were featured during the rally and community meal. These artists included The LaShell School of Dance, Kenneth Russell, along with spoken word artists, Jenna Edwards, J.C. A Creative, Daii Dreamiin, One Single Rose, Wardell Montgomery, and others.  

Movement Photographer and Activist Valerie Jean wrote in a social media post that:

“Aurora Harris and Abayomi Azikiwe emceed the event. There were profound speeches from folks like my dear friend, former president of UAW Local 909, Frank Hammer, who spoke about the long-haul Colombian workers’ struggle against GM, and a personal shero of mine, Hawaida Araf, who was arrested by the Israeli Occupation Forces while on the Global Sumud Flotilla that set out to deliver food and medical supplies to occupied Palestine…. There were powerful performances throughout the day. Zania Alake’ sang Lift Every Voice and Sing, with Allen Dennard on trumpet, Butter Hawkins on drums, and Bill Mayer on electric keyboard. Everyone in attendance stood together and sang along; it was truly beautiful. My friend and fellow Water Protector, Alexander Webb, played his drum and sang an Anishinaabe Dream Song to honor Dr. King’s legacy. There was poetry, children dancing, and music that filled the room. The youngest singer of the day, Jenna Edwards, delivered an awe-inspiring rendition of Stand Up. It was a day full of deep cultural Detroit roots that left my heart full.”

This same writer went on to describe the tribute that was paid to the “Long Distance Runners” for their perseverance in the protracted efforts to achieve advances in the struggle. Those who received recognition were Dorothy Dewberry-Aldridge, Chair of the Detroit MLK Committee, Dan Aldridge, Professor Dr. Gloria Aneb House, Bob Fletcher, Frank Joyce, Terry Shaw, Charles Simmons, William G. Anderson, John W. Hardy, Marian Kramer-Baker, Maryam Lowen, and Martha Prescod Norman Noonan. The event program contained recognition of several people who have transitioned to the ancestral realm in recent months such Imam Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), Claudette Colvin, Rene Litchtman, David Rambeau, Ruby Curl-Pinkens and Assata Shakur.  

According to the above-quoted writer: 

“The 2026 MLK Day Detroit 23rd Annual Rally and March fell on a bitter cold day, but that didn’t stop hundreds of people from making their way to the historic St. Matthew’s & St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church on Woodward in the North End…. After the program, all who could manage the below-zero temperatures marched through the neighborhood. We then shared a community meal and listened to poetry from some of Detroit’s most amazing poets.

Deep gratitude to the Detroit MLK Day Committee for planning this historic day, filled with so many profound and beautiful moments to share with comrades.” 

Atty. Mark Fancher, spoke on the interconnectedness of the domestic and international struggles for emancipation. Fancher, a longtime member of the National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) and the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (Intl.), discussed the progressive legacy of Dr. King while emphasizing the need to internationalize the movements for liberation both inside and outside the territorial boundaries of the U.S. 

The event was co-sponsored and endorsed by a host of organizations and individuals including: The Anti-Fascist Organizing Coalition (AFOC), Detroit Justice Center, Detroiters for Tax Justice, General Defense Committee, IBEW Local 558, May Day Detroit, Michigan Coalition Against Genocide, Moratorium NOW! Coalition, People’s Assembly, Nakba Survivors Association, Mosaic Design Group, Buck Dinner Fund, General Baker Institute, Communist Party, USA, Michigan District, Rev. Denise Griebler and Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellerman, Nancy Hurston Carter, Jewish Voice for Peace, James and Grace Lee Boggs Foundation, Metro Detroit A. Philip Randolph Institute, Broadside Lotus Press, ACLU of Michigan, Central United Methodist Church, Detroit Wobbly Kitchen, Gwen Winston, Palestinian Youth Movement, among others.

Lessons for 2026

A planned stayaway in Minneapolis which gained widespread support within the labor movement was announced from the pulpit on MLK Day in Detroit. A solidarity demonstration was indeed held in downtown Detroit to coincide with the Minnesota actions on January 23. 

Over 100,000 people marched through the streets of Minneapolis while hundreds of businesses along with schools were closed. The people of Minnesota are responding resolutely with mass and labor actions against the fascist occupation by the Trump White House. 

The following morning after the overwhelming successful mass demonstrations and one-day strikes in Minnesota and around the country, the federal agents occupying Minneapolis shot to death Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Registered Nurse (RN) Alex Pretti (37). Immediately the news rapidly spread of Pretti’s death at the hands of Custom and Border Patrol (CBP) agents while the White House soon labelled this Veteran Administration Hospital employee and American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) a domestic terrorist. This was the same tactic used against Renee Nicole Good (37), a poet and community activist, who was shot at point blank range by another federal agent. 

Both of these killings by federal agents are being justified by the administration. Such homegrown and foreign policy atrocities illustrate the nexus between domestic repression, exploitation and imperialist militarism as Dr. King described as early as 1967. Therefore, these contradictions will not be resolved until the social conditions which give rise to them are eliminated. 

Assata Shakur (1947-2025), A Revolutionary Life

Veteran of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, former political prisoner, spent decades in Cuba under the protection of the socialist government

By Abayomi Azikiwe

Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Monday September 29, 2025

Political Review

On Thursday September 25, 2025, indications began to appear over social media that Assata Shakur, a longtime activist in the Black Liberation Movement, had died while living in exile in the Republic of Cuba.

Over the last few years, the whereabouts of Assata was not widely known due to the escalation of the news reports which focused on her being granted political asylum in Cuba.

The State of New Jersey and the United States government had placed a substantial bounty to be paid for her capture dead or alive. When she was captured earlier in May 1973, the corporate media in the U.S. had labelled her as a dangerous terrorist out to kill law-enforcement personnel. 

Although she was accused in the killing of a New Jersey state patrolman, Assata always maintained that she did not shoot anyone. Assata also conveyed that when arrested she had already been shot twice while her hands were up. Another BLA comrade, Zayid Malik Shakur was killed during the incident. Sundiata Acoli, also a member of the BLA, was captured and spent nearly five decades in prison. (https://www.nytimes.com/1973/05/08/archives/panther-buried-in-us-cemetery-shakur-navy-veteran-died-in-jersey.html)

This was by no means an isolated incident. Hundreds of African American activists were hunted down and placed in prison on trumped-up charges. Dozens were killed after being targeted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and various police agencies. 

Between 1967-1973, innumerable clashes occurred that led to the deaths of African Americans and law-enforcement personnel. The Justice Department under successive administrations conducted counter-intelligence operations against domestic political groupings. These armed battles involving the police, national guard and other law-enforcement agencies stemmed from the efforts to prevent a viable revolutionary movement in the U.S.

During this period in the mid-to-late 1960s and into the 1970s, other organizations were also subjected to campaigns of disruption and liquidation. Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, among many others lost their lives as a result of government machinations. 

Consequently, it is not surprising in retrospect that a section of the African American people would take up arms as a defensive measure against political repression. Assata explains in detail her transformation from being a student organizer, to joining the BPP and eventually the BLA in her autobiography entitled: “Assata, An Autobiography.” (https://files.libcom.org/files/assataauto.pdf)

After the 1970s, there was exponential growth within the prison-industrial complex in the U.S. This expansion of prisons and the further criminalization of the African American people took place during the same decades as the reemergence of imperialist military interventions in Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other geo-political regions in the aftermath of the defeat of U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia in 1975. 

Repression Breed Resistance

The narrative put forward by the New Jersey police, the U.S. Justice Department and the corporate press sought to turn the public away from supporting Assata, the Black Panther Party and the BLA as a whole. Nonetheless, it was the repressive apparatus of the U.S. government which forced African American revolutionaries underground and into an armed posture. 

Yet those who met Assata while she was still in the U.S. or during visits to Cuba, described the veteran Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army organizer as a warm and kind individual. There are numerous oral interviews, articles and documentaries which reveal her motivations for joining the Black Liberation struggle during the late 1960s.

While attending the Borough of Manhattan Community College, Assata joined an African American student organization which placed a strong emphasis on African history and cultural heritages. During the late 1960s, these organizations arose at thousands of high schools and higher educational institutions around the U.S. 

These African American student organizations put forward the demands for Black Studies and Pan-African Studies programs on predominantly white campuses as well the HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). The demand for Black Studies prompted other proposals to establish Latin American, Asian, Women’s Studies programs on urban and elite colleges and university campuses. These demands for curriculum reforms were made with the backdrop of urban rebellions and the advent of broader community organizations which would serve as a political rear base for the youth challenging the Eurocentric and capitalist-oriented educational system. 

Assata and Sundiata Acoli after 1973, were convicted and placed in prison. Assata was liberated by her BLA comrades and members of the Weather Underground in November 1979. She was granted political asylum in Cuba in 1984.

Black Liberation and International Solidarity

It is not surprising that Assata Shakur would be granted political asylum in revolutionary Cuba under its co-founder and longtime President Fidel Castro Ruz. Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in early 1959, legal edicts were issued abolishing racism and discrimination inside the country.

Early on in the revolutionary process, a policy of Pan-African solidarity and internationalism became enshrined in the foreign policy of Cuba. When the Congolese government under Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was overthrown at the aegis of its former Belgian colonial rulers aided by U.S. government, Che Guevara, the Minister of Economic Planning in Cuba denounced the assassination of Lumumba and threw his support behind the revolutionary forces still operating in the former Belgian Congo. 

In subsequent years, the Cuban government assisted the newly formed National Liberation Front administration in Algeria to defeat an attempted coup against their revolution. The Cubans would assist the revolutionaries in Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Guinea, etc. to achieve and maintain their anti-colonial gains. 

This solidarity held firm in relations to the attempts to isolate African American revolutionaries during the 1960s through to the 1980s and beyond. People such as Robert and Mabel Williams took refuge in Cuba when they were forced into exile as a result of racial incidents in Monroe, North Carolina. Others such as Eldridge Cleaver, Huey P. Newton, Nehanda Abiodun, etc. were granted political asylum in Cuba. 

During the 2000s, President Castro announced a program to award scholarships to students in the U.S. from nationally oppressed communities to study medicine free of charge in Cuba. The program represented a repudiation of the cancellation and even outlawing of affirmative action admissions policies at universities in the U.S.

The Significance of a Revolutionary Life

With the transition of Assata Shakur in this monumental year of 2025 warrants a pause to reflect on the importance of her life and the inter-generational struggles to end racism, colonialism, imperialism and all forms of oppression and exploitation. The Black Panther Party during the late 1960s warned African Americans and all peoples in the U.S. about the potential of a fascist state.

In July 1969, the BPP called for and held a National Revolutionary Conference for a United Front Against Fascism. This dayslong event was held in Oakland, California, the birthplace of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in October 1966. The conference was attended by thousands of activists from the Bay Area and around the country. 

At this time the full force of the U.S. military and intelligence structures were focused on defeating the revolutionaries fighting for the total liberation of Vietnam along with suppressing the African American people in their genuine aspirations for complete freedom. This dual war domestically and internationally continues today albeit in different forms.

In the U.S., the administration of President Donald Trump has moved with rapid speed in dismantling the gains made by working and oppressed peoples over the last 70 years. The attempted erasure of African American history and that of other oppressed and exploited peoples is occurring right before the eyes of the world. 

The genocide in Gaza against the Palestinians serves as a warning about the dangers of imperialist impunity in the 21st century. With the expansion of the BRICS Plus Summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and others), along with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and other alternative plans for global development, is forcing U.S. imperialism into a desperate situation.

These current threats to the development and well-being of the majority of the world’s population will require the building of revolutionary organizations and alliances. Therefore, the work and experiences of Assata Shakur and the period in which she grew out of, will prove quite instructive to the battles facing the people in the 21st century.

Assata Shakur, Black Panther Party/Black Liberation Army Veteran, Joins Ancestors at 78

On September 25th, 2025, we lost Assata Shakur, a revolutionary, writer, and fierce advocate for Black liberation. Her life was one of courage and defiance—standing against systemic oppression and inspiring generations to resist, to organize, and to imagine a freer world.

In her poem Affirmations, Assata wrote:

“And if I know anything at all,

It’s that a wall is just a wall

And nothing more at all.

It can be broken down.”

Assata’s words continue to remind us that no matter how powerful the prison walls, no matter how oppressive the state, they can be dismantled. Her voice affirms life, truth, and the possibility of transformation, even in the darkest of times.

Assata also carried a deep and unwavering commitment to political prisoners. Speaking of Mumia Abu-Jamal, she once wrote:

“The first time I heard a tape of one of Mumia’s radio broadcasts, it was the first time I fully understood why the United States government was so intent on putting him to death… We could not save Malcolm X, but we can save Mumia. We can save him, and we must save him. Because we love our brother, and we need our brother to help us fight for freedom. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, free all political prisoners.”

At Prison Radio, we carry this legacy forward every day by amplifying the voices of people inside prison walls, voices that expose injustice, demand humanity, and keep alive the fire of truth that Assata believed in.

Assata Shakur’s life and words are proof that art, resistance, and testimony can move mountains, and tear down walls. Let us honor her by listening, amplifying, and acting.

Assata Shakur, Black Liberation Army Leader Exiled in Cuba Dies at 78

Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu

BBC News

Assata Shakur, an activist with the Black Liberation Army exiled in Cuba for four decades, has died in Havana, aged 78.

Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard, died Thursday of unspecified health conditions and "advanced age", Cuba's foreign affairs ministry said in a statement on Friday.

She had been on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list for years after she escaped in 1979 from a New Jersey women's prison, where she was serving a life sentence following her murder conviction in a shootout that killed a New Jersey state trooper and a fellow activists.

Shakur maintained her innocence and reappeared in Cuba in 1984 where she was granted asylum by former president Fidel Castro.

Shakur was born JoAnne Deborah Byron in July 1947 in New York City and was raised between the city and Wilmington, North Carolina. She was the step-aunt and godmother of the late rapper Tupac Shakur.

She became involved in political activism for black Americans while in college, first with the Black Panther Party, a group that favoured radical resistance to racism in the United States and developed schools and other social services for black people.

The movement was heavily surveilled by the FBI, which considered it a threat to the US. Shakur also joined the more radical Black Liberation Army whose members consisted of former Black Panthers.

Shakur was travelling with fellow activists in 1973 when their car was stopped by New Jersey officers. A shootout ensued which killed state trooper Werner Foerster and fellow activist Zayd Malik Shakur. Assata Shakur was also injured in the shootout.

She was arrested and tried for Foerster's death but she denied shooting him and said her trial in front of an all-white jury was unfair.

She told NBC News in a 1998 interview filmed in Havana that she escaped because she was afraid for her life and that she "would never receive justice" in the US.

Her exile in Cuba was among the many thorny issues between the communist-run island and the US.

Shakur was the first woman to be added to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list. The agency and New Jersey each offered a $1 million reward for information leading to her arrest.

She was celebrated in music with her name featured in songs including the 1998 song "Rebel Without a Pause" by hip hop group Public Enemy and "A Song for Assata" by the rapper Common.

Shakur is survived by her daughter Kakuya Shakur, who wrote on Facebook: "Words cannot describe the depth of loss that I am feeling at this time."

‘Nothing to Lose But Our Chains’: Assata Shakur, Former Black Liberation Army Member, Dies in Cuba; Remained on ‘Most Wanted List’

Times of India

Assata Shakur, the former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army member convicted of a 1973 New Jersey state trooper's murder, has died in Havana at 78. She maintained her innocence, escaped prison, and received political asylum in Cuba, despite being on the "Mos Wanted List."

Cuban officials announced that Assata Shakur, a former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army member who fled to Cuba after her 1973 conviction for the murder of a New Jersey state trooper, has died in Havana at the age of 78.

She passed away from health complications related to old age.

“On September 25, 2025, American citizen Joanne Deborah Byron, 'Assata Shakur,' passed away in Havana, Cuba, as a result of health conditions and her advanced age,” the Cuban foreign ministry stated through a post on X.

Shakur, born Joanne Chesimard, was convicted for the May 2, 1973, killing of New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout that also left one of her fellow activists dead.

She was shot twice by police in the incident and maintained her innocence. She escaped from jail in 1979 and later fled to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum.

Her conviction and escape kept her on the New Jersey state police’s "Most Wanted List", and the state’s repeated efforts to extradite her from Cuba were unsuccessful, as cited by ABC News.

In her autobiography, Shakur reflected on the struggle for justice, writing, “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.”

Assata Shakur, Convicted Black Liberationist and Tupac’s Godmother, Dead at 78

Shakur was found guilty of killing a New Jersey state trooper, but maintained her innocence and later escaped to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum

By Jon Blistein

September 26, 2025

Havana, Cuba: JoAnn Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, holding the manuscript of her autobiography with Old Havana, Cuba, in the background on October 7, 1987. (Photo by Ozier Muhammad/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

Assata Shakur in Cuba in 1987.

Ozier Muhammad/Newsday RM/Getty Images

Assata Shakur, the Black Liberationist convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper, who was also Tupac Shakur’s godmother, has died, The New York Times reports. She was 78.

Health officials in Cuba — where Shakur had lived since 1984 after escaping prison and being granted political asylum — confirmed her death. An exact cause wasn’t given, but they said she died from health complications and advanced age.

Shakur — born Joanne Chesimard — was the first woman to be added to the FBI’s Most-Wanted list, and its second domestic terrorist, because of her escape from prison and alleged role in the murder of 34-year-old state trooper Werner Foerster in 1973. But Shakur and her supporters have long maintained her innocence in the shooting, arguing that the evidence and testimony used to convict her were dubious. 

Born and raised in New York City, Shakur became interested in politics, communism, activism, and Black liberation as a college student. After graduating in the late Sixties, she moved out to Oakland and joined the Black Panther Party, later returning to NYC to open a chapter in Harlem, where she oversaw programs like Free Breakfast for Children. Shakur later joined the Black Panther offshoot group, the Black Liberation Army, and started using the name Assata Olugbala Shakur in 1971. 

It was around this time that Shakur met fellow Panther member and activist Afeni Shakur, who would later become Tupac’s mother. In her autobiography, Shakur said Afeni was one of two leaders in the New York chapter that she “had any respect for.”

Both the Panthers and the Black Liberation Army were extensively targeted by the FBI’s infamous Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), which illegally (and sometimes legally) surveilled leftist groups and worked to discredit them. Shakur stated that, as a target of COINTELPRO, the FBI and local police accused her and other activists “of crimes we did not commit.”

During the early Seventies, Shakur was indicted and charged numerous times, facing accusations of armed robbery, multiple bank robberies, kidnapping, murder, and the attempted murder of a policeman. All of these cases ended with either dismissals or acquittals. It wasn’t until she was charged with the murder of Foerster that she was convicted. 

Foerster was shot on May 2, 1973, after state troopers pulled over Shakur and two BLA members — Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli — on the New Jersey Turnpike, allegedly for a faulty taillight. The FBI has claimed that Shakur and one of the other people in the car fired the first shots, which led to a shootout.

But Shakur has maintained that after the car was pulled over, an officer named James Harper ordered her to put her hands up, and when she complied, Harper allegedly shot her. Harper allegedly shot her again in the back as she was turning to avoid the bullets.

Because of her injuries, Shakur further argued that she couldn’t have fired the “execution style” shot that killed Foerster. Additionally, none of Shakur’s fingerprints were found on any of the guns recovered at the scene of the crime. 

After two trials — the first of which ended because of a change of venue, the second of which was declared a mistrial due to Shakur’s pregnancy — Shakur was convicted of murder and battery in 1977. She was sentenced to life in prison.

Just two years later, though, three armed BLA members were able to break her out of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey. They took two guards hostage and commandeered a van during the escape, but both guards were released unharmed, and there were no other casualties or injuries. 

According to one of the men who helped her escape, Tyrone Rison, Shakur spent the next several years moving around safe houses in New York, New Jersey, and Pittsburgh. She eventually made it to the Bahamas before finally arriving in Cuba in 1984, where she was granted asylum. 

Over the next several decades, Shakur taught and wrote, publishing her autobiography in 1987. In the United States, she was at once a wanted criminal with a $2 million bounty on her head and a folk hero. Tupac name-checked her at the end of his song, “Words of Wisdom,” while in “Rebel Without a Pause,” Public Enemy’s Chuck D rapped, “Hard — my calling card/Recorded and ordered, supporter of Chesimard.” In 2000, Common released his tribute track, “A Song for Assata.” 

But while Shakur remained a cause célèbre, she kept a relatively low profile. She rarely gave interviews and reportedly avoided contact with strangers, worried that something might lead to her extradition back to the United States. 

One of her rare public statements came in 1998, when she released an open letter to Pope John Paul II ahead of his trip to Cuba. The letter came in response to one sent by the New Jersey State Police, who’d also reportedly asked His Holiness to intervene in Shakur’s case and expedite her extradition. In the letter — a recording of which aired on Democracy Now! — Shakur reiterated her innocence in the crime for which she was convicted, but also stated: 

“At this point, I think that it is important to make one thing very clear. I have advocated and I still advocate revolutionary changes in the structure and in the principles that govern the United States. I advocate self-determination for my people and for all oppressed inside the United States. I advocate an end to capitalist exploitation, the abolition of racist policies, the eradication of sexism, and the elimination of political repression. If that is a crime, then I am totally guilty.”

Assata Shakur, Black Liberation Army Leader Exiled in Cuba, Dies at 78

The revolutionary spent decades in exile after escaping from a US jail in 1979, where she was held for killing a police officer.

By Rory Sullivan and News Agencies

26 Sep 2025

Assata Shakur, a Black American liberation activist who was given political asylum in Cuba, has died at the age of 78 after decades in exile, her family and Cuban officials said.

Shakur, who was born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, died on Thursday “due to health conditions and advanced age”, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Friday.

Her daughter, Kakuya Shakur, also confirmed her death in a Facebook post. “Words cannot describe the depth of loss that I am feeling at this time,” she wrote.

The former Black Liberation Army (BLA) member, who was a symbol of resistance for many activists, escaped a United States prison in 1979, where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a police officer.

Shakur was found guilty in 1977 of first-degree murder, four years after a shootout between BLA members and two state police officers who had stopped them for a traffic violation in New Jersey. Shakur always protested her innocence, saying she had her hands in the air during the altercation.

Werner Foerster, one of the police officers, was killed “execution-style” at point-blank range, while his colleague was injured, according to the FBI, which later placed Shakur on its “most wanted terrorist” list and offered a $2m reward for her capture.

At the time of the killing, Shakur was being sought for several crimes, including bank robbery, it added.

One of Shakur’s fellow BLA companions died in the shootout, while the third, Sundiata Acoli, served almost 50 years in prison before being granted parole in 2022.

‘Duty to fight for freedom’

In early November 1979, Shakur’s colleagues from the BLA, a Marxist-Leninist organisation that separated from the Black Panther Party, posed as visitors and broke her out of Clinton Correctional Facility for women.

After disappearing, she emerged in 1984 in Cuba, where the then-leader Fidel Castro granted her asylum.

Shakur’s work later became a rallying cry during the Black Lives Matter movement. However, she was criticised by some for being influenced by Marxist and communist ideology.

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win,” Shakur wrote in her autobiography in 1988.  “We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

After her death was announced, Black Lives Matter Grassroots Inc, a group of American racial justice activists, paid tribute to her in a statement on Instagram. “May our work be righteous and brave as we fight in her honor and memory,” it said.

The case of Shakur, who was close with the family of the late rapper Tupac Shakur, caused difficulties in the already tense relationship between the US and Cuba.

During US President Donald Trump’s first term, he demanded that Shakur be returned from Cuba to face justice.

Assata Shakur, a Fugitive Black Revolutionary Sought by the US Since 1979, Dies in Cuba

By PHILIP MARCELO

6:23 PM EDT, September 26, 2025

Assata Shakur, a Black liberation activist who was given political asylum in Cuba after her 1979 escape from a U.S. prison where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a police officer, has died, her daughter and the Cuban government said.

Shakur, who was born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, died Thursday in the capital city of Havana due to “health conditions and advanced age,” Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Shakur’s daughter, Kakuya Shakur, confirmed her mother’s death in a Facebook post.

Officials in New Jersey, where Shakur had been arrested, convicted and imprisoned, said she was 78.

A member of Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Shakur’s case had long been emblematic of the fraught relations between the U.S. and Cuba. American authorities, including President Donald Trump during his first term, demanded her return from the communist nation for decades.

The FBI put Shakur on its list of “ most wanted terrorists,” but, in her telling — and in the minds of her supporters — she was pursued for crimes she didn’t commit or that were justified.

On May 2, 1973, Shakur and two others were pulled over by New Jersey State Police troopers because the car they were driving had a broken taillight.

A gunfight ensued and one of the troopers, Werner Foerster, was killed and another was wounded. One of Shakur’s companions was also killed.

The New York City native fled but was eventually apprehended. She was found guilty of murder, armed robbery and other crimes in 1977 and was sentenced to life in prison. Shakur was charged with additional bank robberies and in the nonfatal shootings of two other police officers, but most of those charges were dismissed or resulted in her acquittal.

Shakur’s prison stint was short-lived, though. In November 1979, members of the Black Liberation Army, posing as visitors, stormed the Clinton Correctional Facility for women, took two guards hostage and commandeered a prison van to break her out.

Shakur disappeared before eventually emerging in 1984 in Cuba, where Fidel Castro granted her asylum.

Offering Shakur safe harbor was one of the most famous examples of Cuba aligning itself with what it describes as revolutionary forces struggling against the oppressive capitalist empire to the north.

Much like Cuba supported anti-colonial and left-wing forces in Africa, Central and South America, the Cuban government saw the armed Black liberation movement in the U.S. as part of a global revolutionary struggle.

New Jersey officials decry her asylum

New Jersey State Assemblyman Michael Inganamort, who sponsored a resolution last year calling on Cuba to extradite Shakur, lamented Friday that “justice was never served” in Foerster’s death, while the labor union representing New Jersey officers dismissed Shakur “for her crime and cowardice.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and State Police Superintendent Patrick Callahan said they would “vigorously oppose” any attempt to repatriate Shakur’s remains to the U.S.

“Sadly, it appears she has passed without being held fully accountable for her heinous crimes,” they said in a joint statement. “Unlike his killer, Trooper Foerster never had a chance to live out his days in peace.”

Sundiata Acoli, who was also convicted in Foerster’s killing, was granted parole in 2022 after being imprisoned for nearly three decades.

In her writings over the years, Shakur has maintained she didn’t shoot anyone and had her hands in the air when she was wounded during the gunfire.

Shakur’s writings became a rallying cry

More recently, her writings became a rallying cry during the Black Lives Matter movement, though opponents criticized her words as being influenced by Marxist and communist ideology.

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win,” Shakur wrote in “Assata: An Autobiography,” originally published in 1988. “We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Black Lives Matter Grassroots Inc., a collective of racial justice activists from around the U.S., vowed to “fight in her honor and memory.”

Malkia Amala Cyril, an early organizer of the BLM movement, expressed sorrow because Shakur died during a time of rising authoritarianism.

“The world in this era needs the kind of courage and radical love she practiced if we are going to survive it,” said Cyril, whose late mother had been part of the Black Panthers in New York alongside Shakur.

Shakur’s influence extended into the music world. She was famously close to the family of late rapper Tupac Shakur, who had considered her a godmother.

Public Enemy, the political hip-hop group and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, are thought to be the first major artists to reference Shakur. The 1988 song “Rebel Without a Pause,” from the album It Takes A Nation, includes the lyrics “supporter of Chesimard,” referring to her legal name.

Rapper Common told Shakur’s story in his 2000 song “A Song for Assata.” The Grammy award-winner’s invitation to a White House poetry event in 2011, during the Obama administration, drew outrage from conservatives and law enforcement groups who felt it was disrespectful to Foerster’s family and police officers broadly.

___

Associated Press writers Aaron Morrison and Michael Weissenstein in New York contributed to this story.

Mumia Abu-Jamal Continues to Struggle After 43 Years of Unjust Imprisonment

Since 1981 the award-winning journalist and former Black Panther Party member has been denied the right to due process and freedom of speech

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Monday December 9, 2024

Prison Politics

During the early morning hours of December 9, 1981, cab driver and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was wounded and arrested on charges related to the shooting death of a white Philadelphia police officer.

When it became known who the principal suspect was in the death of Officer Daniel Faulkner, the mainstream corporate media crafted their editorial approach to make it appear as if Mumia was already guilty even prior to a trial.

Since his conviction and initial sentencing to death, it has been an ongoing struggle by Mumia and his supporters to overturn this injustice and to win his release. A years-long international campaign was successful in having the former Panther taken off death row in 2011. 

Nonetheless, for decades the judicial system in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has refused to seriously consider the exculpatory evidence which could exonerate Mumia and release him from incarceration. In the latest legal challenge to win a new trial, the judge hearing the case ignored the fact that pertinent information related to efforts to deny Mumia a fair hearing by prosecutors was suppressed. 

Abu-Jamal turned 70 years-old in April 2024. Over the last decade his health has been deteriorating as a direct result of the horrendous conditions under which he is being confined in Pennsylvania state prisons. 

He has suffered numerous ailments including diabetes, failing eyesight, hepatitis C, heart disease, among others. In every instance of a healthcare emergency, people around the country and the world were compelled to launch legal challenges and letter writing campaigns to secure the necessary medical treatments needed to save his life. 

Despite these legal and health crises, Abu-Jamal remains a prolific writer and broadcaster. He has authored and contributed to a dozen books while issuing regular commentaries through Prison Radio on a plethora of topics including racism, militarism, poverty and the plight of the more than two million people incarcerated in the U.S. The most recent book that he edited entitled “Beneath the Mountain: An Anti-Prison Reader” was released in July of this year.

His case has prompted thousands of rallies and demonstrations over the decades. Every year on April 24 (his birthday) and December 9 (his arrest anniversary), there are demonstrations in Philadelphia to demand his immediate release from prison.

His case has become a national and international cause celebre. For people throughout North America and in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, the name of Mumia Abu-Jamal is widely known as millions continue to call for his freedom.

How Did We Get Here?

Mumia had been a founding member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1969 at the height of the United States government’s counter-intelligence program aimed at neutralizing the revolutionary movement. After the demise of the BPP, he continued to work as a journalist and community organizer while eventually becoming a staunch supporter of the MOVE organization which was started in Philadelphia during the early 1970s. 

In a biographical entry on the Prison Radio website, it says of Mumia’s legacy:

“In the late 1970s, Abu-Jamal worked as a reporter for radio stations throughout the Delaware Valley. He was a staff reporter for WUHY (now WHYY), the NPR flagship station, and he filed nationally for All Things Considered and the Morning Report. Along with his team at Philadelphia’s WUHY, he won the prestigious Major Armstrong Award (1980) from Columbia University for excellence in broadcasting. In 1981, Abu-Jamal was elected president of the Association of Black Journalists’ Philadelphia chapter…. Currently, he’s serving life without parole at SCI Mahanoy in Frackville, PA. Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial and its resultant first-degree murder conviction have been criticized as unconstitutionally corrupt by legal and activist groups for decades, including by Amnesty International and Nobel Laureates Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison, and Desmond Tutu. Abu-Jamal earned his BA at Goddard College in 1996; his MA from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1999; and an honorary Doctor of Law from the New College of California in 1996. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz.” (https://www.prisonradio.org/correspondent/mumia-abu-jamal/#section-biography)

Since the late 1960s, hundreds of activists have been locked up and framed as political prisoners for crimes in which they did not commit. Many of these freedom fighters served decades in prison as some even died behind bars.

Others, such as Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Ruchell Magee and Sundiata Acoli were released in their final months suffering from terminal illnesses. This treatment of activists illustrates clearly the social character of the U.S. political system which maintains the nationally oppressed peoples under repressive and exploitative conditions. 

Assata Shakur, a veteran member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), was broken out of prison by her comrades in New Jersey 45 years ago in November 1979. Eventually, Shakur was granted political asylum in Cuba. 

Leonard Peltier Could by Freed from Federal Prison by Outgoing President Joe Biden

American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Leonard Peltier has languished in federal prisons since being illegally extradited from Canada by the U.S. government in 1976. Peltier was railroaded into prison for the killing of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota during 1975. 

Although many politicians, celebrities and mass organizations have petitioned for a new trial or the release of Peltier, the organizer has remained in prison for 47 years. AIM grew out of the upsurge and spin-offs from the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s. The organization was founded in 1968 to fight for the rights of indigenous people whose land and lives were stolen by European settler-colonialism.  

Peltier was denied parole again in June 2024. However, with the imminent departure of President Joe Biden on January 20, 2025, he could be released. Peltier and AIM have been longtime allies with the Black Liberation Movement and other oppressed peoples. 

A report published by The Hill points out that a Senate Democrat has called upon Biden to release the AIM leader:

“Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chair Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) called on President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist convicted of murdering two FBI agents in a controversial 1977 trial, before he leaves office. Peltier is ‘among those who deserve grace and mercy,’ Schatz said on the Senate floor Wednesday (Dec. 4). ‘If there was ever a case that merited compassionate release, Leonard Peltier’s is it,’ he continued. ‘This is exactly what that awesome presidential power is for: to right a historic wrong. And if not that, then to show mercy and let an old man die with his family.’” (https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5024103-schatz-biden-leonard-peltier-clemency/)

Indigenous people have been denied fundamental human rights, civil rights and the right to self-determination for centuries. The release of Peltier would by the least the federal government could do to make partial amends for the genocidal policies enacted by the U.S. since its inception.

Supporters of Peltier are encouraging people to contact the White House to demand the granting of clemency by Biden to this Indigenous leader who has been imprisoned for nearly five decades. An online petition can be signed by logging on to the following URL: (https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/to-president-biden-free-leonard-peltier-grant-clemency-now/)

Worsening Prison Conditions Prompting Self-Immolation in Virginia

The cases of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier are representative of the inhumane treatment that is routinely meted out by the U.S. ruling class to oppressed peoples and their organizational representatives. Disproportionately people of color, the poor and working class are the ones who are subjected to the profiling, arrest and prosecution by the judicial system. 

As a result of the unbearable conditions of people within the prison-industrial-complex, some inmates have begun to set themselves on fire as a form of protest against their treatment. At the Red Onion State Prison in Virginia there have been numerous cases of self-immolation.

Prison Radio broke this story earlier in the year. In one report the media outlet says that:

“DeAndre Gordon, Demetrius Wallace, Tre’vaughn Brown, and Ekong Eshiet, prisoners at Red Onion, have set themselves on fire while demanding to be taken ‘off the mountain.’ The warden confirmed six men burned themselves in protest. Prisoners report the total is over a dozen men treated for burns. A number were taken for skin grafts, seven hours away, at the Evans-Haynes Burn Center at VCU Hospital in Richmond, VA. ‘These acts of self-immolation are desperate cries for help from at least twelve Black men, since September 15, who allege systemic abuse, neglect, and blatant human rights violations,’ the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus statement reads and continues. ‘People who have been incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison describe being regularly subjected to racial and physical abuse from correctional officers, medical neglect including the withholding of medicine, excessive stays in solitary confinement with one report of 600 consecutive days, inedible food having been covered in maggots and officers’ spit, and violent dog attacks.’”(https://www.prisonradio.org/news-update/red-onion-state-prison-update/)

Although the U.S. praises itself as being the leading democracy in the world, the country has the highest per capita prison population internationally. The overwhelming majority of those incarcerated come from the proletariat and the oppressed. (https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/mass-incarceration-trends/)

Consequently, to bring about justice it is necessary to eliminate the prison-industrial-complex as a key aspect in the overall transformation of the country. Institutional racism and class exploitation must be upended to create just and equal society.  

Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, for Fri. Nov. 8, 2024

Listen to the Fri. Nov. 8, 2024 special edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. 

To hear the complete podcast of this episode just click on the following link: Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast 11/08 by Pan African Radio Network | Politics

This episode features our regular PANW report with dispatches on some of the most pressing and burning issues of the day including the collapse of the power grid in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Africa's most populous state. 

In the second hour we review developments in the war in West Asia. 

Finally, we look back on the 45th anniversary of the liberation of Assata Shakur.

A PAN-ABOLITIONIST VIEW ON JULIAN ASSANGE'S RELEASE

By Julia Wright

As freedom fighters who have seen many wars from Vietnam to Algeria, from Palestine to Kanaky, we do not take the good news that comes our way lightly.

First because we fought and put our lives on the line for it.

Second, because there is always a dark lining to a silver cloud.

Third, because good news of a battle won if treated correctly can lead to a victory if we stay sober and do not get too heady.

The liberation of Julian Assange is certainly a battle won but should be viewed in the wider context of the release of only one political prisoner among a legion of others taken captive by the USA hegemon.

In a pan-abolitionist optic, Julian Asange's freedom is meaningless unless it is connected to the release of all the political prisoners the empire has taken inside and outside its borders.

If Joe Biden's government had to reluctantly let Julian Assange go it is for three main reasons :

1) Mass mobilisation for Assange maintained worldwide over decades in spite of the betrayal by the press - the very class whose freedom was at risk.

2) The grassroot mobilization of peoples worldwide for Palestine has shown luminol on the bloody hands of the very war criminals Wikileaks denounced - war criminals who walked free while Assange was behind bars.

The post October 7th resilience and the longevity of the Palestinian uprisings both in Gaza, throughout the world and within the belly of the beast is both the direct context and one of the causes of Julian Assange's freedom today.

The powers-that-be could not afford a Julian Assange front to open up on top of the already un-manageable Palestinian one. Something had to give.

3) The Democrats are desperately in need of political theatre to appease an electorate increasingly uncommitted as it rightly identifies Biden's government with genocide.

In conclusion, the question would be: at a time when the monolithic front of the hegemon is cracking and the warmongers are desperate to don a mask of benevolence and "electorability", should we not seize the time to make a stronger than ever, frontline case for the other political prisoners - Leonard Peltier, Kamau Sadiki, Rashid Johnson, Jamil Al Amin, Mumia Abu-Jamal (who remains a truth-to-power journalist behind bars) to quote only a few ?

Lets remember the advice of Assata Shakur and Dhoruba Bin Wahad: save the living while it is still time - there will always be time to honor the ancestors.

Kwame Nkrumah: "The independence of one African State is meaningless unless it is connected with the independence of all African States".

(c) Julia Wright. June 26, 2024. All Rights Reserved to the Elaine Legacy Center and the Richard Wright Civil Rights Center

Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, for Sun. March 31, 2024

Listen to the Sun. March 31, 2024 special edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire.

To hear the complete podcast of this program click on here: Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast 03/31 by Pan African Radio Network | Politics (blogtalkradio.com)  

The program features our PANW report with dispatches on developments in Lebanon, United States militarism in Palestine; the future of Senegal amid the election of a new president; and Zambian debt relief. 

In the second and third hours we complete our series honoring International Women's History Month. 

We then look at the prison-industrial complex and the contributions of Assata Shakur.

Plight of the Imprisoned Worsens in the United States

Political detainees are contracting COVID-19 and dying due to the pervasive injustices among incarcerated people

By Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Wednesday April 7, 2021

Commentary

Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald was a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in Los Angeles, California during 1969 when he was arrested and prosecuted under the federal government’s Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) designed to liquidate the threat of revolutionary organizations in the United States.

Fitzgerald recently died in detention at the age of 71 after serving nearly 52 years in the prison-industrial-complex where he witnessed the phenomenal growth within the inmate population over a period of five decades. (https://www.freedom4chip.org/copy-of-biography)

The BPP became a central focus on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under former Director J. Edgar Hoover who had falsely declared the organization as the gravest threat to the national security of the U.S. Hoover had long been an advocate of racial segregation and anti-communism. He had vigorously spearheaded the investigations of communists and other radicals during the post-World War II period of the Cold War.

Prior to the late 1940s and 1950s, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer of the Justice Department had been a mentor of Hoover’s. Palmer, the successor to Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory who had prosecuted opponents of World War I through the Espionage Act of 1917, had after the first imperialist conflagration, led a witch hunt which resulted in the arrests, detentions and deportations of thousands of activists beginning in 1919. 

Later Hoover would establish the FBI as a separate entity which sought to collect information, investigate and prosecute those considered enemies of the status-quo. The COINTELPRO project was officially initiated in 1956 directed against the Communist Party and its allied groups. Nonetheless, with the rise of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements after the mid-1950s through the early 1970s, the disproportionate focus of the FBI was aimed at the destruction of the African American liberation struggle. 

With specific reference to Fitzgerald, he was accused of involvement in the shooting of a California Highway Patrolman (CHP) in September 1969 after a traffic stop. Fitzgerald and one officer were injured in the incident while he was able to escape. Later in October, Fitzgerald was arrested in a BPP office and was later tried for the wounding of the CHP officer along with the murder of a private security guard outside a department store. 

Evidence against Fitzgerald was lacking during the trial. He had others testify in the trial that he was not at the location of the robbing and killing of the security guard. However, largely as a result of the political bias against the BPP, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to the death penalty. 

After 1972, when there was a supreme court decision which overturned capital punishment for four years, Fitzgerald was resentenced to two life terms in prison. He was repeatedly denied parole over the years yet in recent months due to his age and medical condition, was eligible for release. 

Tragically enough Fitzgerald developed additional medical problems. He had suffered a stroke earlier and in recent months developed serious cardiovascular disease. His death came at a time when the plight of prisoners, particularly political detainees, has gotten considerable attention among social justice movements nationally and internationally.

According to a statement from Fitzgerald: “The prison administrators and their advocates within the state want to create fear in the minds of the public in an effort to persuade the people to give state authorities carte blanche in the inhumane treatment of convicts and allow the prison administrators to operate without oversight and accountability.” (https://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/fitzgerald-romaine-chip)

In an extended letter from him which reads like a poem, Fitzgerald contemplates his release from decades of imprisonment in the state of California. He says of his hopes in part that: “I will welcome the warmth and laughter of my grandchildren. I look forward to their hugs and smiles. I will be the Grandpa present to soothe them through occasional scrapes after they show me their somersaults and expert bike riding maneuvers….  I will continue to appreciate the love and challenges of family. I imagine our dialogue will include our sense of community, our country, the world, our contributions and help to our neighborhoods and, of course, sharing my personal sorrows and hope. I will lead by example with spontaneous acts of love, compassion and kindness thereby demonstrating my belief in the transformation of others. I will enjoy volunteering in preschools and/or visiting the elderly in convalescent hospitals.”

Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald Is Not Alone

There are many other political detainees, prisoners of war and those unjustly incarcerated for purposes of bureaucratic advancement and the enrichment of the capitalist system, who are suffering and dying daily. Mumia Abu-Jamal, falsely charged and convicted during the early 1980s for the shooting death of a white police officer in Philadelphia, is an award-winning journalist and author of several books. Jamal spent more than two decades on death row and was eventually taken off after a global campaign to save his life. Jamal was a youth member of the BPP beginning in 1969 and later became a professional broadcast journalist. He was a supporter of the revolutionary MOVE organization in the city and defended the group against attacks by the corporate media and the police.

Jamal was recently diagnosed with COVID 19. He has suffered from Hepatitis C, diabetes, and skin disorders. His eyesight is failing all the while he has been held in maximum security prison for a crime he did not commit. Although Jamal has been given the right to an appeal, another trial has not taken place. Thousands nationally and internationally are continuing to demand his immediate release. 

Other prisoners include Leonard Peltier, a leading member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), was convicted in the shooting death of two FBI agents in 1975. After being illegally extradited from Canada, he was railroaded through the U.S. courts and sentenced to life in imprisonment. Peltier also suffers from chronic ailments after being forced to remain incarcerated for over 40 years.

Assata Shakur, a former member of the BPP in New York and a soldier within the Black Liberation Army (BLA), was framed in the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper in 1973. She was liberated from prison in November 1979 by a taskforce of BLA and Weather Underground members and eventually granted political asylum in Cuba after living underground for a number of years in the U.S.

The National Jericho Movement, founded in the late 1990s, has since this time period sought to bring attention to the fact that there are political prisoners in the U.S. The Movement was organized with the assistance of political prisoners such as Jail Muntaqim, a former BLA soldier who served nearly five decades in prison. He was released during 2020 and is working to bring about the release of other comrades. Muntaqim was threatened with reincarceration under the guise of filling out a voter registration card last year. 

Prisons Are Integral to the Capitalist System of Exploitation and National Oppression

In the U.S. there are more than 2.3 million people incarcerated. The number of those within the criminal justice system has grown by 500% since the early 1970s at the time of the Attica Rebellion and other forms of prison resistance. 

African Americans, people of Latin American descent and proletarian people in general make up the overwhelming majority of those held behind bars. These inmates are forced to work for slave wages producing goods and services for the capitalist and imperialist system. The exploitation of labor within the criminal justice structures represent another form of modern-day enslavement. 

Moreover, the almost nonexistent state of healthcare within the prisons is endangering inmates, those working in the facilities along with their families and friends that visit the institutions. Although there has been the release of some inmates based upon compassion related to health concerns, far too many remain behind bars for nonviolent crimes which pose no threat to society.

The police and prisons grew out of the sordid history of the ruling class within the U.S. The continued existence of both institutions remains a threat to the struggle for total liberation and social emancipation.