Assata Autobiography Essay

How has Assata Shakur earn such a compelling place in black power? Is it from the

case the U.S. Congress passed a judgement asking Cuba to send her back

to the U.S.? Or is it from the case that happened on Dec 24, 1997 when the New Jersey

state police contacted Pope John Paul II querying him to involve and have the Cuban

government arrest Assata back to the U.S.? Considering all the behaviors, I recommend Assata

understanding and influence is best comprehending and most effective in Assata autobiography

(Foreword by Angela Davis and Lennox S. Hinds) because the autobiography is a testament and

proof of black revolutionary life. The text reveals how after three juries discharged multiple

cases against her and absolve her of all charges

on bank robberies and a drug dealer’s death, she
was still imprisoned by an all nonblack jury on May 2, 1973 with the corruption of killing two
state police on the New Jersey turnpike, but even after the judgement call she still manages to
increase her freedom. In Assata, you will learn the understanding and definition of a black
strong woman, Assata Shakur.

Joanne Deborah Bryon spent most of her childhood with her grandparents in
Wilmington, North Carolina and with her mother in New York. Joanne dropped out of high
school by the time she reached seventeen, but later enrolled in college in her early twenties
attending Manhattan Community College and City College of New York. At an early age
Joanne became a student Activist and participated in many presentation about antiwar and
Protesting racial discrimination. As a commitment to her African heritage, she changed her name
to Assata Shakur.

Assata Shakur joined the black panther party (BPP) shortly after moving to Oakland,
California where she assists in helping establish community’s educational programs,
demonstrations, and political rallies. With her return to New York, Assata became an important
member of the BPP’s Harlem chapter. Assata helped coordinate and staff the free breakfast
program for children in the community, she managed the preparation of a free clinic and
coordinated member’s health care, community outreach and first aid.

Ms. Shakur accepted that politically instigate armed actions were a tactic in the fight to
win for black life. It is uncertain what behaviors Assata engaged in to become an aim of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI). Assata went into hiding
Because of surveillance and harassment and became a member of BLA (Black Liberation Army)
a clandestine nationwide network largely composed of former BPP members who had gone
underground to escape criminal charges or police and FBI repression and who believed that
structural change could be precipitated by armed struggle.

In an opening statement, she delivered

to the courtroom during one trial in 1975, she said: "The Black Liberation Army is not an

organization: it goes beyond that. It is a concept, a people's movement, an idea. The concept of

the BLA arose because of the political, social, and economic oppression of black people in this

country. And where there is oppression, there will be resistance. The BLA is part of that

resistance movement. The Black Liberation Army stands for freedom and justice for all people."

While underground, Assata Shakur was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted List and

indicted for three bank robberies (April 5, 1971, August 23, 1971, and September 1, 1972), the

kidnapping and murder of two drug dealers (December 28, 1972, and January 2, 1973), and the

attempted murder of policemen on January 23, 1973. On May 2, 1973, Assata Shakur and two

other BLA members were stopped while driving on the Turnpike by New Jersey

state police officers. After the officers found guns in their cars, a conflict encountered and

Assata
Shakur was shot and Assata Shakur's friends escaped. Whether Assata Shakur fired any guns that
Night no one knows. She was hospitalized and charged with Forrester's murder. In her
autobiography, Shakur analysis the conditions in which she was kept during the
days that followed – her food was spat in, she was not allowed to contact a lawyer, and Zayd
Malik's dead body was left lying next to her. She reminisces some compassion from a German
nurse at the hospital, who protested about how tight the cuff was covering Shakur ankle and
wrap it in gauze, and later showed her the call button so she could buzz the nurses' station
anytime she needed help. She credits to all her conditions a merge argument: the smell. "I don't
care what jail I've been in, they all stink. They have a smell unlike any smell on earth. Like blood
and sweat and feet and open sores and, if misery has a smell, like misery."

In March 1977 Assata Shakur was convicted of murdering state trooper Werner
Forrester, although medical experts give evident that her injuries would have rendered her
incapable of firing the fatal shot. As Shakur noted: "It was obvious I didn't have one chance in a
millions of receiving any kind of justice." Two years later, she escaped from
prison and was given political asylum in Cuba. The reasons behind the escape are uncertain.

In Assata Shakur's autobiography, which journal her life and
Intellectual development, was published. Even though many of her activities in Cuba have been
buried in mystery, Assata Shakur continued to be a vocal activist in the 1980s and 1990s,
speaking out on global justice issues and the prison industrial complex. In 1998, the U.S.
Congress passed a resolution to demand Shakur's deportation from Cuba, spurring Shakur's
supporters to create the "Hands of Assata" campaign.

To some, such as the FBI and the state of New Jersey, she was a dangerous,
subversive militant and, a bank robber and the murderer of a state trooper. The federal
government and New Jersey together managed to bring Chesimard to trial ten times, obtaining
conviction only once, and then on questionable evidence. The book is an otherwise fascinating
story of the impact of white racism on a sensitive, avtivist and powerful young black woman.
Joanne Chesimard, changed her name to an African name to validate her commitment to black
liberation, joined militant organizations, and was ultimately charge with the murder of a New
Jersey highway patrol officer in 1977. Her descriptions of life in prison and the court system are
violently. Living now in as an escaped felon, she continues her plea for revolution.