Assata Shakur

On May 2 1973, Black Panther activist Assata Olugbala Shakur (fsn) Joanne Deborah Chesimard, was pulled over by the New Jersey State Police, shot twice and then charged with murder of a police officer. Assata spent six and a half years in prison under brutal circumstances before escaping out of the maximum security wing of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey in 1979 and moving to Cuba.   In her own words, Assata ("she who struggles") Olugbala ("for the people") Shakur ("the thankful one"), is a 20th century escaped slave. Because of  government persecution, she was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government's policy towards people of color. Shakur is an ex political prisoner, and she has been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. She has been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize her, she is not a criminal, nor has she ever been one. In the 1960s, she participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. She  joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO program. Because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar  Hoover called it "greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists. Source