Assata Shakur, Black Revolutionary and 2Pac's Godmother, Dies at 78

"Assata Shakur, the Black revolutionary and godmother to Tupac Shakur, has died, Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported last Friday, September 26. A cause of death was not specified beyond "health conditions and advanced age." Shakur's daughter, Kakuya Shakur, confirmed the news in a Facebook post. "At approximately 1:15 PM on September 25th, my mother, Assata Shakur, took her last earthly breath," she wrote. "Words cannot describe the depth of loss that I am feeling at this time." Shakur was 78."

"While at City College, Shakur became a member of the Golden Drums society, a Black activist organization, and, subsequently, the Black Panther Party. However, she disliked the Black Panthers' macho posturing and, in 1971, joined the Black Liberation Army (BLA), a Marxist-Leninist offshoot of the group. That same year, Shakur dropped what she would later call her slave name and became Assata Olugbala Shakur. According to her 1988 autobiography, "Assata" means "she who struggles," "Olugbala" means "Love for the people," and Shakur means "the thankful.""

"Born JoAnne Deborah Byron in 1947 to an accountant father and schoolteacher mother, Shakur spent her childhood between Queens, New York, and her grandparents' home in North Carolina, then still under Jim Crow laws. She dropped out of high school at 17, but took night classes and eventually attended the City College of New York, where she met and married a fellow student activist named Louis Chesimard. Their marriage only lasted a year, according to The New York Times, but Shakur kept Chesimard's surname."

Assata Shakur died on September 25 at age 78 in Cuba; Cuban authorities cited health conditions and advanced age and her daughter confirmed the time of death. Born JoAnne Deborah Byron in 1947, she spent childhood between Queens and her grandparents' North Carolina home under Jim Crow. She left high school at 17, later attended City College of New York, and briefly married Louis Chesimard. She joined Golden Drums and the Black Panther Party, then the Black Liberation Army in 1971 and adopted the name Assata Olugbala Shakur. Between 1971 and 1973 she faced multiple indictments, and a May 1973 traffic stop by New Jersey troopers led to an ensuing gun incident.

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