HAVANA (Chatnewstv.com) — Assata Shakur, a Black liberation activist who escaped from a U.S. prison in 1979 and was granted asylum in Cuba, has died, her daughter and the Cuban government said. She was 77.
Shakur, born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, died Thursday in Havana “due to health conditions and advanced age,” Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Her daughter, Kakuya Shakur, confirmed the death in a Facebook post.
A member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, Shakur became one of the most controversial figures of the 1970s Black liberation struggle. Her case was a longstanding source of tension between Washington and Havana, with U.S. authorities, including then-President Donald Trump, repeatedly demanding her return.
The FBI placed her on its list of most wanted terrorists, offering a $2 million reward for her capture.
In the view of supporters, however, Shakur was a political target. “Assata was hunted, not for crimes she committed, but for the struggle she represented,” said one statement circulated by activists Friday.
Her notoriety stemmed from a May 2, 1973, shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike. State Trooper Werner Foerster was killed, another officer was wounded and one of Shakur’s companions was fatally shot. Shakur, then facing other felony charges including bank robbery, was arrested after being wounded in the gunfight.
She maintained in later writings that she did not fire a weapon. “My hands were up when I was shot,” she wrote in a letter from Cuba.
In 1977, a New Jersey jury convicted Shakur of murder, armed robbery and related crimes. She was sentenced to life in prison, but two years later, Black Liberation Army members posing as visitors stormed the Clinton Correctional Facility for women, seized two guards and escaped with her in a prison van.
Shakur surfaced in Cuba in 1984, where then-President Fidel Castro granted her political asylum. She lived there for the rest of her life.
Her co-defendant in Foerster’s killing, Sundiata Acoli, was granted parole in 2022 after decades in prison. His lawyers had argued that, at more than 80 years old, he was no longer a danger and had mentored other inmates.
For U.S. officials, Shakur’s case remained unresolved. “The return of Joanne Chesimard is non-negotiable,” Trump said in 2017, calling her “a cop killer.”
Shakur, meanwhile, became an enduring symbol for activists who saw her as a victim of political persecution.
“She died in exile, but never in silence,” her daughter wrote.
