"Assata Shakur called herself a 20th-century escaped slave. Claiming the runaway slave narrative proved a powerful and inspirational metaphor. Drawing on historical memory, Shakur placed herself in the pantheon of Black freedom fighters from Nat Turner to Harriet Tubman who, by any means necessary, took their liberation into their own hands. Shakur was lionized in rap songs and taught in college classes, and her likeness could be found in classrooms and community centers in Black neighborhoods across the nation."
"But the lore of Assata Shakur, as lores often do, obscured more complicated truths. Like many of those who ran before her, Shakur claimed her freedom only at a devastating cost: It meant relinquishing the ability to raise her only child; it meant she could never again return home, not to bury her mother, not to see her own grandchildren, not to be buried herself."
"Born JoAnne Deborah Byron in 1947 into a family of strivers in Queens, she split her time between her mother's home in New York and her maternal grandparents' in Wilmington, N.C. (She changed her birth name in 1971, rejecting it as a slave name.) Her grandparents in the segregated South imbued Shakur with an unshakable pride and dignity in being Black."
Assata Shakur adopted the runaway-slave narrative as a metaphor, aligning herself with historical Black freedom fighters and gaining cultural reverence. The reverence included celebration in music, academia, and community spaces, but obscured painful personal consequences. Her escape and exile required giving up raising her only child and never returning home to bury her mother or see grandchildren. Born JoAnne Deborah Byron in 1947, she divided childhood between Queens and Wilmington, N.C., changed her name in 1971, and carried the pride instilled by her grandparents. Exposure to segregation and police brutality radicalized her and led her to join the Black Panther Party amid COINTELPRO surveillance.
Read at www.nytimes.com
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