"Assata Shakur, a Black liberation activist who was given political asylum in Cuba after her 1979 escape from a U.S. prison where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a police officer, has died, her daughter and the Cuban government said. Shakur, who was born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, died Thursday in the capital city of Havana due to "health conditions and advanced age," Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement."
"Shakur's daughter, Kakuya Shakur, confirmed her mother's death in a Facebook post. Officials in New Jersey, where Shakur had been arrested, convicted and imprisoned, said she was 78. A member of Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Shakur's case had long been emblematic of the fraught relations between the U.S. and Cuba. American authorities, including President Trump during his first term, demanded her return from the communist nation for decades."
"The FBI put Shakur on its list of " most wanted terrorists," but, in her telling and in the minds of her supporters she was pursued for crimes she didn't commit or that were justified. On May 2, 1973, Shakur and two others were pulled over by New Jersey State Police troopers because the car they were driving had a broken taillight. A gunfight ensued and one of the troopers, Werner Foerster, was killed and another was wounded."
Assata Shakur, born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, died in Havana at age 78 from health conditions and advanced age, Cuban officials said. Shakur received political asylum in Cuba after a 1979 escape from a U.S. prison where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a police officer. She was a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. U.S. authorities long sought her return and the FBI placed her on a most-wanted list. On May 2, 1973, a traffic stop led to a gunfight in which a trooper was killed; Shakur was later convicted in 1977.
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]