The Poet Who Captured the Rhythms of His Communities

"The United States government called her one of the world's most-wanted terrorists. 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."

"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."

Assata Shakur was labeled one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists while she described herself as a 20th-century escaped slave. She invoked historical runaway-slave imagery and aligned herself with Black freedom fighters such as Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman. Her image spread through rap, classrooms, and community centers, becoming a symbol of resistance. That symbolic power obscured personal sacrifices: exile required relinquishing the ability to raise her only child and barred her from returning home to bury her mother or see grandchildren. Born JoAnne Deborah Byron in 1947, she split time between Queens and Wilmington, N.C., changed her name in 1971, and joined the Black Panther Party amid COINTELPRO repression and surveillance.

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