#black-liberation-army — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #black-liberation-army, aggregated by home.social.
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Tribute to Assata Shakur, Street Protests Denounce U.S. War Threats Against Cuba
https://world-outlook.com/2026/06/04/tribute-to-assata-shakur-street-protests-denounce-u-s-war-threats-against-cuba/[includes publicity leaflets for upcoming #protests in defense of #Cuba]
from #WorldOutlook
June 4, 2026A #NYC meeting to celebrate the life of Black revolutionary #AssataShakur highlighted Cuba’s internationalism and sounded the alarm about #US threats of war against the island nation. Gathering at the historic Riverside Church in Manhattan on May 30, 2026, more than 2,000 people — overwhelmingly Black — paid tribute to Shakur, a member of the Black Panther Party and #BlackLiberationArmy who died in Havana in September 2025.
Writer and activist #AngelaDavis, herself affiliated with the #BlackPantherParty in the 1970s, was among the opening speakers and the first — although not the last — to point out that the defense of Cuba was a part of Shakur’s legacy. Cuba was mentioned in numerous speeches throughout the 3-½ hour program.
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Tribute to Assata Shakur, Street Protests Denounce U.S. War Threats Against Cuba
https://world-outlook.com/2026/06/04/tribute-to-assata-shakur-street-protests-denounce-u-s-war-threats-against-cuba/[includes publicity leaflets for upcoming #protests in defense of #Cuba]
from #WorldOutlook
June 4, 2026A #NYC meeting to celebrate the life of Black revolutionary #AssataShakur highlighted Cuba’s internationalism and sounded the alarm about #US threats of war against the island nation. Gathering at the historic Riverside Church in Manhattan on May 30, 2026, more than 2,000 people — overwhelmingly Black — paid tribute to Shakur, a member of the Black Panther Party and #BlackLiberationArmy who died in Havana in September 2025.
Writer and activist #AngelaDavis, herself affiliated with the #BlackPantherParty in the 1970s, was among the opening speakers and the first — although not the last — to point out that the defense of Cuba was a part of Shakur’s legacy. Cuba was mentioned in numerous speeches throughout the 3-½ hour program.
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Tribute to Assata Shakur, Street Protests Denounce U.S. War Threats Against Cuba
https://world-outlook.com/2026/06/04/tribute-to-assata-shakur-street-protests-denounce-u-s-war-threats-against-cuba/[includes publicity leaflets for upcoming #protests in defense of #Cuba]
from #WorldOutlook
June 4, 2026A #NYC meeting to celebrate the life of Black revolutionary #AssataShakur highlighted Cuba’s internationalism and sounded the alarm about #US threats of war against the island nation. Gathering at the historic Riverside Church in Manhattan on May 30, 2026, more than 2,000 people — overwhelmingly Black — paid tribute to Shakur, a member of the Black Panther Party and #BlackLiberationArmy who died in Havana in September 2025.
Writer and activist #AngelaDavis, herself affiliated with the #BlackPantherParty in the 1970s, was among the opening speakers and the first — although not the last — to point out that the defense of Cuba was a part of Shakur’s legacy. Cuba was mentioned in numerous speeches throughout the 3-½ hour program.
-
Tribute to Assata Shakur, Street Protests Denounce U.S. War Threats Against Cuba
https://world-outlook.com/2026/06/04/tribute-to-assata-shakur-street-protests-denounce-u-s-war-threats-against-cuba/[includes publicity leaflets for upcoming #protests in defense of #Cuba]
from #WorldOutlook
June 4, 2026A #NYC meeting to celebrate the life of Black revolutionary #AssataShakur highlighted Cuba’s internationalism and sounded the alarm about #US threats of war against the island nation. Gathering at the historic Riverside Church in Manhattan on May 30, 2026, more than 2,000 people — overwhelmingly Black — paid tribute to Shakur, a member of the Black Panther Party and #BlackLiberationArmy who died in Havana in September 2025.
Writer and activist #AngelaDavis, herself affiliated with the #BlackPantherParty in the 1970s, was among the opening speakers and the first — although not the last — to point out that the defense of Cuba was a part of Shakur’s legacy. Cuba was mentioned in numerous speeches throughout the 3-½ hour program.
-
Tribute to Assata Shakur, Street Protests Denounce U.S. War Threats Against Cuba
https://world-outlook.com/2026/06/04/tribute-to-assata-shakur-street-protests-denounce-u-s-war-threats-against-cuba/[includes publicity leaflets for upcoming #protests in defense of #Cuba]
from #WorldOutlook
June 4, 2026A #NYC meeting to celebrate the life of Black revolutionary #AssataShakur highlighted Cuba’s internationalism and sounded the alarm about #US threats of war against the island nation. Gathering at the historic Riverside Church in Manhattan on May 30, 2026, more than 2,000 people — overwhelmingly Black — paid tribute to Shakur, a member of the Black Panther Party and #BlackLiberationArmy who died in Havana in September 2025.
Writer and activist #AngelaDavis, herself affiliated with the #BlackPantherParty in the 1970s, was among the opening speakers and the first — although not the last — to point out that the defense of Cuba was a part of Shakur’s legacy. Cuba was mentioned in numerous speeches throughout the 3-½ hour program.
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Dhoruba Bin Wahad, Co-Founder of Black Liberation Army, Reflects on the Legacy of Assata Shakur and Revolutionary Sacrifice
On May 30, 2026, a Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Assata Shakur was held at the Riverside Church in New York City. Dhoruba Bin Wahad, co-founder of the Black Liberation Army, wrote these words of tribute, in hopes they would be included in the program.
Solidarity and Greetings to all gathered to commemorate and reflect on the Life and legacy of Assata Shakur.
I am indeed appreciative of this opportunity to address this momentous gathering of comrades, friends, and family of my comrade Assata.
I know that many of you gathered here today may not have known Assata, but are instilled with, and inspired by, her lifelong resistance and revolutionary struggle against the white supremacist settler construct that is the United States of America.
I also appreciate that some of you gathered here today actually knew Assata, aided and supported her during her long exile in Cuba, and to these comrades I salute you and express my profound gratitude.
Finally, to those gathered in this iconic Riverside Church in Harlem, who in their own way have struggled for the liberation of African people, oppressed people, the downtrodden, the disregarded “Wretched of the Earth”, I salute all of you.
We may seem as strangers to one another, but we are only comrades who have never met.
I’d like to take this opportunity to tell the unvarnished truth about my Comrade Assata. It was during the early 1970s when our retaliatory resistance against the armed agents of racist state terrorism assumed organized intensity. Police murder of Black youth, accompanied by the plague of heroin addiction, informed the legacy and legend of Assata, you now pay homage to.
Few of you gathered here today would have ever heard of Assata were it not for the emergence of the Black Liberation Army (BLA).
I say this because, despite scholarly deceitfulness surrounding the BLA, Assata Shakur was a soldier in the centuries-old war against African peoples, a war that began with the North Atlantic Slave Trade, a racist war that continues to this very moment by violent and non-violent means.
The scholarly deceit I speak of lies in the denial of this war, and the deception that Black people fought for Civil Rights, rather than for Human Rights, and that Human Rights can be granted by the inhumane, rather than appropriated by those criminalized and defamed.
This fact is important. Because Assata was not an innocent victim of police repression, shot wantonly with her hands raised in submission. She was a revolutionary, and revolutionaries are never victims of injustice. How many freedom fighters were wantonly killed in the struggle for the liberation of their people? Medgar Evers, Amilcar Cabral, Che Guevara, some murdered even while surrendering?
Facts speak louder than fiction: In 1971, Assata wasn’t a designated FBI COINTELPRO target. She was a medical cadre of the National Committee to Combat Fascism in Washington Heights, Harlem, New York. NCCF chapters were formations of the original Black Panther Party.
Indeed, by 1972, COINTELPRO had already achieved some of its most significant achievements with the assassination of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, and the breakup of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Earlier in late 1971, COINTELPRO was reconfigured as NEWKILL and CHESIROB. Both were acronyms for FBI repressive campaigns authorized by the Nixon White House specifically targeting the emergence of the BLA and its clandestine leadership, one of whom was Joanne Chesimard, hence the acronym CHESIROB for Chesimard Robberies.
I choose to remind everyone of these historical facts, rather than repeat historical fantasies of Assata’s victimhood. Why? Because Assata was a warrior in the tradition of Harriet Tubman, in the tradition of Denmark Vesey, and our ancestors who resisted the brutality, murder, and enslavement of African People for over 300 years.
In the struggle for freedom, revolutionaries are never victims, or innocents. Assata was not an unfortunate victim like George Floyd – or Clifford Glover – she was a conscious, committed, and revolutionary Freedom Fighter!
In this historical moment, we should be mindful that White Supremacy and the American Empire are in decline.
Besieged by the Global South’s emerging Unity, White America has become increasingly lawless. And like a rabid dog backed into a corner, capitalist White supremacist state violence knows no limits.
The land that gave Assata refuge, Cuba, now faces imminent attack by the U.S. in its attempt to reassert the Monroe Doctrine of the 19th century in the Western Hemisphere.
The People of Iran are under attack by the U.S. and its Zionist White Supremacist cohort, Israel. We must demand peace in Western Asia and an end to Zionist settler expansionism.
My beloved comrades and friends, we should not merely eulogize Assata, we should live like her. In this historical moment, Revolutionary resistance to the racist, imperialistic, and violent enemies of humanity requires nothing less.
Long Live the Spirit of Assata Shakur!
Long Live the Independence of the Cuban People!
Dhoruba bin-Wahad is a former member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Black Liberation Army (BLA). He was a leading member of the New York chapter of the BPP, a Field Secretary of the BPP responsible for organizing chapters throughout the East Coast, and a member of the Panther 21.
source: Black Agenda Report
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=33449 #assataShakur #blackLiberation #blackLiberationArmy #blackPantherParty #dhorubaBinWahad #guerrilla -
Dhoruba Bin Wahad, Co-Founder of Black Liberation Army, Reflects on the Legacy of Assata Shakur and Revolutionary Sacrifice
On May 30, 2026, a Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Assata Shakur was held at the Riverside Church in New York City. Dhoruba Bin Wahad, co-founder of the Black Liberation Army, wrote these words of tribute, in hopes they would be included in the program.
Solidarity and Greetings to all gathered to commemorate and reflect on the Life and legacy of Assata Shakur.
I am indeed appreciative of this opportunity to address this momentous gathering of comrades, friends, and family of my comrade Assata.
I know that many of you gathered here today may not have known Assata, but are instilled with, and inspired by, her lifelong resistance and revolutionary struggle against the white supremacist settler construct that is the United States of America.
I also appreciate that some of you gathered here today actually knew Assata, aided and supported her during her long exile in Cuba, and to these comrades I salute you and express my profound gratitude.
Finally, to those gathered in this iconic Riverside Church in Harlem, who in their own way have struggled for the liberation of African people, oppressed people, the downtrodden, the disregarded “Wretched of the Earth”, I salute all of you.
We may seem as strangers to one another, but we are only comrades who have never met.
I’d like to take this opportunity to tell the unvarnished truth about my Comrade Assata. It was during the early 1970s when our retaliatory resistance against the armed agents of racist state terrorism assumed organized intensity. Police murder of Black youth, accompanied by the plague of heroin addiction, informed the legacy and legend of Assata, you now pay homage to.
Few of you gathered here today would have ever heard of Assata were it not for the emergence of the Black Liberation Army (BLA).
I say this because, despite scholarly deceitfulness surrounding the BLA, Assata Shakur was a soldier in the centuries-old war against African peoples, a war that began with the North Atlantic Slave Trade, a racist war that continues to this very moment by violent and non-violent means.
The scholarly deceit I speak of lies in the denial of this war, and the deception that Black people fought for Civil Rights, rather than for Human Rights, and that Human Rights can be granted by the inhumane, rather than appropriated by those criminalized and defamed.
This fact is important. Because Assata was not an innocent victim of police repression, shot wantonly with her hands raised in submission. She was a revolutionary, and revolutionaries are never victims of injustice. How many freedom fighters were wantonly killed in the struggle for the liberation of their people? Medgar Evers, Amilcar Cabral, Che Guevara, some murdered even while surrendering?
Facts speak louder than fiction: In 1971, Assata wasn’t a designated FBI COINTELPRO target. She was a medical cadre of the National Committee to Combat Fascism in Washington Heights, Harlem, New York. NCCF chapters were formations of the original Black Panther Party.
Indeed, by 1972, COINTELPRO had already achieved some of its most significant achievements with the assassination of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, and the breakup of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Earlier in late 1971, COINTELPRO was reconfigured as NEWKILL and CHESIROB. Both were acronyms for FBI repressive campaigns authorized by the Nixon White House specifically targeting the emergence of the BLA and its clandestine leadership, one of whom was Joanne Chesimard, hence the acronym CHESIROB for Chesimard Robberies.
I choose to remind everyone of these historical facts, rather than repeat historical fantasies of Assata’s victimhood. Why? Because Assata was a warrior in the tradition of Harriet Tubman, in the tradition of Denmark Vesey, and our ancestors who resisted the brutality, murder, and enslavement of African People for over 300 years.
In the struggle for freedom, revolutionaries are never victims, or innocents. Assata was not an unfortunate victim like George Floyd – or Clifford Glover – she was a conscious, committed, and revolutionary Freedom Fighter!
In this historical moment, we should be mindful that White Supremacy and the American Empire are in decline.
Besieged by the Global South’s emerging Unity, White America has become increasingly lawless. And like a rabid dog backed into a corner, capitalist White supremacist state violence knows no limits.
The land that gave Assata refuge, Cuba, now faces imminent attack by the U.S. in its attempt to reassert the Monroe Doctrine of the 19th century in the Western Hemisphere.
The People of Iran are under attack by the U.S. and its Zionist White Supremacist cohort, Israel. We must demand peace in Western Asia and an end to Zionist settler expansionism.
My beloved comrades and friends, we should not merely eulogize Assata, we should live like her. In this historical moment, Revolutionary resistance to the racist, imperialistic, and violent enemies of humanity requires nothing less.
Long Live the Spirit of Assata Shakur!
Long Live the Independence of the Cuban People!
Dhoruba bin-Wahad is a former member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Black Liberation Army (BLA). He was a leading member of the New York chapter of the BPP, a Field Secretary of the BPP responsible for organizing chapters throughout the East Coast, and a member of the Panther 21.
source: Black Agenda Report
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=33449 #assataShakur #blackLiberation #blackLiberationArmy #blackPantherParty #dhorubaBinWahad #guerrilla -
“You Whisper to Us”: Racial Justice Activists and Artists Honor Assata’s Legacy
Assata Shakur's passing unleashed a flowering of hope that the freedom she fought for could one day be real for us all. -
“You Whisper to Us”: Racial Justice Activists and Artists Honor Assata’s Legacy
Assata Shakur's passing unleashed a flowering of hope that the freedom she fought for could one day be real for us all. -
“Learning from Assata: A young Black socialist on duty and discipline
Black grassroots organizer and visual artist Rachel Domond speaks on the legacy and influence of Assata Shakur”Natalia Marques
peoples dispatch
October 01, 2025#AssataShakur #BlackPantherParty #BlackLiberationArmy #BlackRadicalism #BlackRevolutionary #BlackLiberation #Marxism #Communism #BlackMastodon
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“Learning from Assata: A young Black socialist on duty and discipline
Black grassroots organizer and visual artist Rachel Domond speaks on the legacy and influence of Assata Shakur”Natalia Marques
peoples dispatch
October 01, 2025#AssataShakur #BlackPantherParty #BlackLiberationArmy #BlackRadicalism #BlackRevolutionary #BlackLiberation #Marxism #Communism #BlackMastodon
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“Learning from Assata: A young Black socialist on duty and discipline
Black grassroots organizer and visual artist Rachel Domond speaks on the legacy and influence of Assata Shakur”Natalia Marques
peoples dispatch
October 01, 2025#AssataShakur #BlackPantherParty #BlackLiberationArmy #BlackRadicalism #BlackRevolutionary #BlackLiberation #Marxism #Communism #BlackMastodon
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“Learning from Assata: A young Black socialist on duty and discipline
Black grassroots organizer and visual artist Rachel Domond speaks on the legacy and influence of Assata Shakur”Natalia Marques
peoples dispatch
October 01, 2025#AssataShakur #BlackPantherParty #BlackLiberationArmy #BlackRadicalism #BlackRevolutionary #BlackLiberation #Marxism #Communism #BlackMastodon
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“Learning from Assata: A young Black socialist on duty and discipline
Black grassroots organizer and visual artist Rachel Domond speaks on the legacy and influence of Assata Shakur”Natalia Marques
peoples dispatch
October 01, 2025#AssataShakur #BlackPantherParty #BlackLiberationArmy #BlackRadicalism #BlackRevolutionary #BlackLiberation #Marxism #Communism #BlackMastodon
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“A fugitive’s freedom: Assata Shakur’s exile in Cuba
A living testament to the possibility of resistance, Assata embodied the courage not only to think about change but to fight for a new world entirely.”Manolo De Los Santos
peoples dispatch
September 29, 2025https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/29/a-fugitives-freedom-assata-shakurs-exile-in-cuba/
#AssataShakur #BlackPantherParty #BlackLiberationArmy #BlackRadicalism #BlackRevolutionary #BlackLiberation #Marxism #Communism #BlackMastodon
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“A fugitive’s freedom: Assata Shakur’s exile in Cuba
A living testament to the possibility of resistance, Assata embodied the courage not only to think about change but to fight for a new world entirely.”Manolo De Los Santos
peoples dispatch
September 29, 2025https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/29/a-fugitives-freedom-assata-shakurs-exile-in-cuba/
#AssataShakur #BlackPantherParty #BlackLiberationArmy #BlackRadicalism #BlackRevolutionary #BlackLiberation #Marxism #Communism #BlackMastodon
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“A fugitive’s freedom: Assata Shakur’s exile in Cuba
A living testament to the possibility of resistance, Assata embodied the courage not only to think about change but to fight for a new world entirely.”Manolo De Los Santos
peoples dispatch
September 29, 2025https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/29/a-fugitives-freedom-assata-shakurs-exile-in-cuba/
#AssataShakur #BlackPantherParty #BlackLiberationArmy #BlackRadicalism #BlackRevolutionary #BlackLiberation #Marxism #Communism #BlackMastodon
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“A fugitive’s freedom: Assata Shakur’s exile in Cuba
A living testament to the possibility of resistance, Assata embodied the courage not only to think about change but to fight for a new world entirely.”Manolo De Los Santos
peoples dispatch
September 29, 2025https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/29/a-fugitives-freedom-assata-shakurs-exile-in-cuba/
#AssataShakur #BlackPantherParty #BlackLiberationArmy #BlackRadicalism #BlackRevolutionary #BlackLiberation #Marxism #Communism #BlackMastodon
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“A fugitive’s freedom: Assata Shakur’s exile in Cuba
A living testament to the possibility of resistance, Assata embodied the courage not only to think about change but to fight for a new world entirely.”Manolo De Los Santos
peoples dispatch
September 29, 2025https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/29/a-fugitives-freedom-assata-shakurs-exile-in-cuba/
#AssataShakur #BlackPantherParty #BlackLiberationArmy #BlackRadicalism #BlackRevolutionary #BlackLiberation #Marxism #Communism #BlackMastodon
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Long Live Assata Shakur, 1947-2025
On September 26, 2025, Black revolutionary Assata Shakur transitioned after leading a long and virtuous life of internationalist resistance. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Assata’s living legacy and recognizes her lifelong struggle against global oppression as a practice to inspire countless generations to come.
Assata Shakur was the target of racist, counter-insurgent incarceration from 1973 to 1979 because of her work with the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. For years from within prison walls, she fought false accusations while bearing the brunt of settler-colonial prison and police violence. After being shot twice by New Jersey State Police, Assata testified to being choked, beat, dragged, kicked, pulled by her hair, and cuffed by her ankles so tight that the handcuffs were inside her flesh. She received inadequate medical care and was imprisoned in a men’s prison because of how “threatening” she was deemed to be by the state.
Writing of her own experience, Assata noted that political persecution and incarceration is “part and parcel of the [US] government’s policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges.”
In 1979, a unit of the Black Liberation Army liberated Assata from prison and in 1984 she travelled to Cuba where she lived in exile until her recent passing. Living in exile in Cuba under the protection of the socialist Cuban government only further expanded Assata’s analysis of anti-imperialism and the interconnectedness of global struggles for liberation. Assata was a true internationalist in every sense of the word, describing Cuba as “One of the Largest, Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps) That has ever existed on the Face of this Planet.”
Since the FBI’s commencement and alleged completion of COINTELPRO — the program that targeted Assata and other Black liberation activists between 1956 and 1971— little has changed in how the settler state attacks those who fight for the oppressed masses of the world. Assata Shakur is one of many people labelled as a so-called “terrorist” by the US and other Western and allied governments.
“They wanted to portray her as a terrorist, something that was an injustice, a brutality, an infamous lie,” President Fidel Castro once remarked about Assata. The FBI eventually classified her as the first woman on their Most Wanted Terrorists list. A few years later, the first woman Al-Qassam Brigades member Ahlam Al-Tamimi was added to this same list illustrating the joint struggle that the Palestinian and Black liberation movements share.
Much like the case of Assata and Ahlam, Palestinian resistance factions, the Axis of Resistance, and Palestinian solidarity organizations and individual activists across the globe are designated as “terrorist[s]” for siding with the masses of the world who oppose imperialism. Those of us who recognize prisons as a colonial tool for waging warfare against a subjugated people are particularly criminalized.
Assata’s political work with the Black Panthers and the BLA specifically identified American police and prisons as racist and oppressive forces that must be eliminated. Her offerings of steadfastness remind us to continue to fight for and honour those still inside and those who have been martyred by the colonial prison system.
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Free Abdullah Barghouthi, Free Kamau Sadiki, Free Jakhi McCray, Free Malik Farrad Muhammad, Free Ahmad Sa’adat, Free Kojo Bomani Sababu, Free Casey Goonan, Free Imam Jamil Al-Amin, Free Elias Rodriguez, and Free Them All!
Long live Assata Shakur, Sekou Odinga, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Sheikh Khader Adnan, Ed Poindexter, Ismail Haniyeh, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Yahya Sinwar, and many more who have been martyred and/or have joined the ancestors.
A revolutionary freedom fighter, a political prisoner, a mother, a woman in exile— Assata Shakur’s lifelong practice of militancy and sacrifice will continue to be aspirational to all who wish to see the day that imperialism receives its final blow.
“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.”Rest in Power, Comrade Assata!
Read also:
- Assata Shakur: How Black Radical Tradition Intersects with Palestinian Struggle, by Benay Blend (Palestine Chronicle)
- Interview with Assata Shakur (1947-2025), Revolutionary Communist Group
- In Honor and Memory of Assata Shakur, Black Alliance for Peace
source: Samidoun
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21720
#assataShakur #blackLiberationArmy #blackPantherParty #cuba #guerrilla #martyr #northAmerica #repression #rip #samidoun
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Long Live Assata Shakur, 1947-2025
On September 26, 2025, Black revolutionary Assata Shakur transitioned after leading a long and virtuous life of internationalist resistance. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Assata’s living legacy and recognizes her lifelong struggle against global oppression as a practice to inspire countless generations to come.
Assata Shakur was the target of racist, counter-insurgent incarceration from 1973 to 1979 because of her work with the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. For years from within prison walls, she fought false accusations while bearing the brunt of settler-colonial prison and police violence. After being shot twice by New Jersey State Police, Assata testified to being choked, beat, dragged, kicked, pulled by her hair, and cuffed by her ankles so tight that the handcuffs were inside her flesh. She received inadequate medical care and was imprisoned in a men’s prison because of how “threatening” she was deemed to be by the state.
Writing of her own experience, Assata noted that political persecution and incarceration is “part and parcel of the [US] government’s policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges.”
In 1979, a unit of the Black Liberation Army liberated Assata from prison and in 1984 she travelled to Cuba where she lived in exile until her recent passing. Living in exile in Cuba under the protection of the socialist Cuban government only further expanded Assata’s analysis of anti-imperialism and the interconnectedness of global struggles for liberation. Assata was a true internationalist in every sense of the word, describing Cuba as “One of the Largest, Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps) That has ever existed on the Face of this Planet.”
Since the FBI’s commencement and alleged completion of COINTELPRO — the program that targeted Assata and other Black liberation activists between 1956 and 1971— little has changed in how the settler state attacks those who fight for the oppressed masses of the world. Assata Shakur is one of many people labelled as a so-called “terrorist” by the US and other Western and allied governments.
“They wanted to portray her as a terrorist, something that was an injustice, a brutality, an infamous lie,” President Fidel Castro once remarked about Assata. The FBI eventually classified her as the first woman on their Most Wanted Terrorists list. A few years later, the first woman Al-Qassam Brigades member Ahlam Al-Tamimi was added to this same list illustrating the joint struggle that the Palestinian and Black liberation movements share.
Much like the case of Assata and Ahlam, Palestinian resistance factions, the Axis of Resistance, and Palestinian solidarity organizations and individual activists across the globe are designated as “terrorist[s]” for siding with the masses of the world who oppose imperialism. Those of us who recognize prisons as a colonial tool for waging warfare against a subjugated people are particularly criminalized.
Assata’s political work with the Black Panthers and the BLA specifically identified American police and prisons as racist and oppressive forces that must be eliminated. Her offerings of steadfastness remind us to continue to fight for and honour those still inside and those who have been martyred by the colonial prison system.
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Free Abdullah Barghouthi, Free Kamau Sadiki, Free Jakhi McCray, Free Malik Farrad Muhammad, Free Ahmad Sa’adat, Free Kojo Bomani Sababu, Free Casey Goonan, Free Imam Jamil Al-Amin, Free Elias Rodriguez, and Free Them All!
Long live Assata Shakur, Sekou Odinga, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Sheikh Khader Adnan, Ed Poindexter, Ismail Haniyeh, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Yahya Sinwar, and many more who have been martyred and/or have joined the ancestors.
A revolutionary freedom fighter, a political prisoner, a mother, a woman in exile— Assata Shakur’s lifelong practice of militancy and sacrifice will continue to be aspirational to all who wish to see the day that imperialism receives its final blow.
“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.”Rest in Power, Comrade Assata!
Read also:
- Assata Shakur: How Black Radical Tradition Intersects with Palestinian Struggle, by Benay Blend (Palestine Chronicle)
- Interview with Assata Shakur (1947-2025), Revolutionary Communist Group
- In Honor and Memory of Assata Shakur, Black Alliance for Peace
source: Samidoun
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21720
#assataShakur #blackLiberationArmy #blackPantherParty #cuba #guerrilla #martyr #northAmerica #repression #rip #samidoun
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Joanne Deborah Chesimard aka Assata Shakur, #FBI #MostWanted #BlackLiberationArmy member, and godmother of rapper #Tupac, who lived as US fugitive in exile in #Cuba dead at 78.
Her death spawns comments of scorn from current bug eyed FBI director.who was born 10 years after the bank robbery crime that made her infamous, ...
https://abcnews.go.com/US/assata-shakur-wanted-black-liberation-army-member-dies/story/
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Joanne Deborah Chesimard aka Assata Shakur, #FBI #MostWanted #BlackLiberationArmy member, and godmother of rapper #Tupac, who lived as US fugitive in exile in #Cuba dead at 78.
Her death spawns comments of scorn from current bug eyed FBI director.who was born 10 years after the bank robbery crime that made her infamous, ...
https://abcnews.go.com/US/assata-shakur-wanted-black-liberation-army-member-dies/story/
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Assata Shakur and the Duty to Free Our Comrades
Assata Shakur was a radical Black feminist, revolutionary, and freedom fighter. Her life was a testament to true liberatory practice, love, and community. She taught us about the interconnectedness of our struggles as oppressed people and the necessity for resistance in the face of state and imperial violence, by any means necessary and no matter the cost to our own comforts. She also taught us that liberation cannot be negotiated; it must be seized. She stands as a hero for those of us fighting for the liberation of the global working class, and we honor the sacrifices she made to advance that cause.
After years of being targeted and hunted by police for opposing the racist, capitalist, and imperialist U.S. as a member of the Black Panther Party and later the Black Liberation Army, and after being stalked and surveilled by U.S. state agencies, including the FBI, Assata was arrested and falsely accused of murdering a New Jersey State Trooper in 1973. Despite Assata’s innocence, and the many experts who testified that her injuries during the altercation would have made it impossible for her to commit the murder, she was convicted by an all-white jury in 1977. While in state custody, the conditions under which Assata was held were nothing short of barbaric and inhumane, including solitary confinement in a men’s prison, 24-hour surveillance, and denial of intellectual nourishment and adequate medical attention, including when she became pregnant while awaiting trial in 1973.
Assata’s story is one that many living in Lënapehòkink (The Bronx) and across the U.S. empire at large may recognize or relate to. Her insistence on life and her years of fighting for the liberation of Black people living under state violence serve as a reminder to us all to remain “reluctant warriors” in the face of U.S. state terrorism. It was Assata’s militant comrades in the Black Liberation Army who liberated her from incarceration by the state; they did not abandon her after she was apprehended. They understood, as Palestinians do, that there was no future for their movement without that freedom. Let us remember the comrades who broke her out, some of whom served decades in prison and some of whom remain incarcerated. Salute to Sekou Odinga, Silas Muhammad, Mtayari Shabaka Sundiata, Winston Patterson, Silvia Baraldini, Marilyn Buck, Mutulu Shakur and other BLA comrades.
It is the militants and revolutionaries who are most repressed and incarcerated. We must learn from Assata and her comrades and apply those lessons to today. We have several comrades who are currently incarcerated and must also be liberated. Free Casey Goonan, Jakhi McCray, Tarek Bazrouk, Leqaa Kordia, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Kamau Sadiki, Rev. Joy Powell, Elias Rodriguez — FREE THEM ALL!
After successfully liberating herself from prison with the help of fellow BLA members in 1979, Assata was eventually granted political asylum in Cuba by Fidel Castro, and she lived out the remainder of her years as a free Black woman on liberated land, remaining vocal and devoted to Black liberation. Thank you to our Cuban comrades who protected and embraced Assata for the 41 years she called Cuba home.
We thank Assata for her relentless sacrifice, education, and fierce love and commitment to Black people and all those oppressed around the world. May her life be a continued reminder to the struggle that although we must survive, we also deserve to live. May her memory propel us forward until we are all free. May her teachings help light the path as the struggle continues.
“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”
Rest in Power, Comrade Assata.
source: Bronx Anti-War
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21635
#assataShakur #blackLiberation #blackLiberationArmy #blackPantherParty #cuba #northAmerica
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Assata Shakur and the Duty to Free Our Comrades
Assata Shakur was a radical Black feminist, revolutionary, and freedom fighter. Her life was a testament to true liberatory practice, love, and community. She taught us about the interconnectedness of our struggles as oppressed people and the necessity for resistance in the face of state and imperial violence, by any means necessary and no matter the cost to our own comforts. She also taught us that liberation cannot be negotiated; it must be seized. She stands as a hero for those of us fighting for the liberation of the global working class, and we honor the sacrifices she made to advance that cause.
After years of being targeted and hunted by police for opposing the racist, capitalist, and imperialist U.S. as a member of the Black Panther Party and later the Black Liberation Army, and after being stalked and surveilled by U.S. state agencies, including the FBI, Assata was arrested and falsely accused of murdering a New Jersey State Trooper in 1973. Despite Assata’s innocence, and the many experts who testified that her injuries during the altercation would have made it impossible for her to commit the murder, she was convicted by an all-white jury in 1977. While in state custody, the conditions under which Assata was held were nothing short of barbaric and inhumane, including solitary confinement in a men’s prison, 24-hour surveillance, and denial of intellectual nourishment and adequate medical attention, including when she became pregnant while awaiting trial in 1973.
Assata’s story is one that many living in Lënapehòkink (The Bronx) and across the U.S. empire at large may recognize or relate to. Her insistence on life and her years of fighting for the liberation of Black people living under state violence serve as a reminder to us all to remain “reluctant warriors” in the face of U.S. state terrorism. It was Assata’s militant comrades in the Black Liberation Army who liberated her from incarceration by the state; they did not abandon her after she was apprehended. They understood, as Palestinians do, that there was no future for their movement without that freedom. Let us remember the comrades who broke her out, some of whom served decades in prison and some of whom remain incarcerated. Salute to Sekou Odinga, Silas Muhammad, Mtayari Shabaka Sundiata, Winston Patterson, Silvia Baraldini, Marilyn Buck, Mutulu Shakur and other BLA comrades.
It is the militants and revolutionaries who are most repressed and incarcerated. We must learn from Assata and her comrades and apply those lessons to today. We have several comrades who are currently incarcerated and must also be liberated. Free Casey Goonan, Jakhi McCray, Tarek Bazrouk, Leqaa Kordia, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Kamau Sadiki, Rev. Joy Powell, Elias Rodriguez — FREE THEM ALL!
After successfully liberating herself from prison with the help of fellow BLA members in 1979, Assata was eventually granted political asylum in Cuba by Fidel Castro, and she lived out the remainder of her years as a free Black woman on liberated land, remaining vocal and devoted to Black liberation. Thank you to our Cuban comrades who protected and embraced Assata for the 41 years she called Cuba home.
We thank Assata for her relentless sacrifice, education, and fierce love and commitment to Black people and all those oppressed around the world. May her life be a continued reminder to the struggle that although we must survive, we also deserve to live. May her memory propel us forward until we are all free. May her teachings help light the path as the struggle continues.
“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”
Rest in Power, Comrade Assata.
source: Bronx Anti-War
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21635
#assataShakur #blackLiberation #blackLiberationArmy #blackPantherParty #cuba #northAmerica
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„Es ist unsere Pflicht, zu gewinnen“
#AssataShakur"Am 25. September verstarb die Revolutionärin Assata Shakur im Exil auf Kuba. Shakur kämpfte ihr Leben lang gegen rassistische Unterdrückung von Schwarzen in den USA und patriarchale Gewalt gegen Schwarze Frauen.
Assata Shakur – mit Mädchennamen Joanne Deborah Byron – stand für die kompromisslose, antirassistische und antikapitalistische Linie der militanten Schwarzen Bewegung in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren. Sie verband den Kampf gegen die Unterdrückung Schwarzer Menschen in den USA mit einer klaren anti-imperialistischen Haltung, beispielsweise gegen den US-amerikanischen Krieg in Vietnam. „Der Sieg eines unterdrückten Volkes irgendwo auf der Welt ist ein Sieg für die Schwarzen in Amerika“, brachte Shakur diesen Internationalismus einmal auf den Punkt.
In den späten 1960ern schloss sie sich zuerst den Black Panthers an, die für Selbstverteidigung, Community-Programme und politische Bildung eintraten. Später wechselte sie in die Black Liberation Army (BLA), die vor allem direkte Aktionen gegen Polizei und Staat durchführte."
https://perspektive-online.net/2025/09/es-ist-unsere-pflicht-zu-gewinnen-zum-tod-von-assata-shakur/
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„Es ist unsere Pflicht, zu gewinnen“
#AssataShakur"Am 25. September verstarb die Revolutionärin Assata Shakur im Exil auf Kuba. Shakur kämpfte ihr Leben lang gegen rassistische Unterdrückung von Schwarzen in den USA und patriarchale Gewalt gegen Schwarze Frauen.
Assata Shakur – mit Mädchennamen Joanne Deborah Byron – stand für die kompromisslose, antirassistische und antikapitalistische Linie der militanten Schwarzen Bewegung in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren. Sie verband den Kampf gegen die Unterdrückung Schwarzer Menschen in den USA mit einer klaren anti-imperialistischen Haltung, beispielsweise gegen den US-amerikanischen Krieg in Vietnam. „Der Sieg eines unterdrückten Volkes irgendwo auf der Welt ist ein Sieg für die Schwarzen in Amerika“, brachte Shakur diesen Internationalismus einmal auf den Punkt.
In den späten 1960ern schloss sie sich zuerst den Black Panthers an, die für Selbstverteidigung, Community-Programme und politische Bildung eintraten. Später wechselte sie in die Black Liberation Army (BLA), die vor allem direkte Aktionen gegen Polizei und Staat durchführte."
https://perspektive-online.net/2025/09/es-ist-unsere-pflicht-zu-gewinnen-zum-tod-von-assata-shakur/
-
„Es ist unsere Pflicht, zu gewinnen“
#AssataShakur"Am 25. September verstarb die Revolutionärin Assata Shakur im Exil auf Kuba. Shakur kämpfte ihr Leben lang gegen rassistische Unterdrückung von Schwarzen in den USA und patriarchale Gewalt gegen Schwarze Frauen.
Assata Shakur – mit Mädchennamen Joanne Deborah Byron – stand für die kompromisslose, antirassistische und antikapitalistische Linie der militanten Schwarzen Bewegung in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren. Sie verband den Kampf gegen die Unterdrückung Schwarzer Menschen in den USA mit einer klaren anti-imperialistischen Haltung, beispielsweise gegen den US-amerikanischen Krieg in Vietnam. „Der Sieg eines unterdrückten Volkes irgendwo auf der Welt ist ein Sieg für die Schwarzen in Amerika“, brachte Shakur diesen Internationalismus einmal auf den Punkt.
In den späten 1960ern schloss sie sich zuerst den Black Panthers an, die für Selbstverteidigung, Community-Programme und politische Bildung eintraten. Später wechselte sie in die Black Liberation Army (BLA), die vor allem direkte Aktionen gegen Polizei und Staat durchführte."
https://perspektive-online.net/2025/09/es-ist-unsere-pflicht-zu-gewinnen-zum-tod-von-assata-shakur/
-
„Es ist unsere Pflicht, zu gewinnen“
#AssataShakur"Am 25. September verstarb die Revolutionärin Assata Shakur im Exil auf Kuba. Shakur kämpfte ihr Leben lang gegen rassistische Unterdrückung von Schwarzen in den USA und patriarchale Gewalt gegen Schwarze Frauen.
Assata Shakur – mit Mädchennamen Joanne Deborah Byron – stand für die kompromisslose, antirassistische und antikapitalistische Linie der militanten Schwarzen Bewegung in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren. Sie verband den Kampf gegen die Unterdrückung Schwarzer Menschen in den USA mit einer klaren anti-imperialistischen Haltung, beispielsweise gegen den US-amerikanischen Krieg in Vietnam. „Der Sieg eines unterdrückten Volkes irgendwo auf der Welt ist ein Sieg für die Schwarzen in Amerika“, brachte Shakur diesen Internationalismus einmal auf den Punkt.
In den späten 1960ern schloss sie sich zuerst den Black Panthers an, die für Selbstverteidigung, Community-Programme und politische Bildung eintraten. Später wechselte sie in die Black Liberation Army (BLA), die vor allem direkte Aktionen gegen Polizei und Staat durchführte."
https://perspektive-online.net/2025/09/es-ist-unsere-pflicht-zu-gewinnen-zum-tod-von-assata-shakur/
-
„Es ist unsere Pflicht, zu gewinnen“
#AssataShakur"Am 25. September verstarb die Revolutionärin Assata Shakur im Exil auf Kuba. Shakur kämpfte ihr Leben lang gegen rassistische Unterdrückung von Schwarzen in den USA und patriarchale Gewalt gegen Schwarze Frauen.
Assata Shakur – mit Mädchennamen Joanne Deborah Byron – stand für die kompromisslose, antirassistische und antikapitalistische Linie der militanten Schwarzen Bewegung in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren. Sie verband den Kampf gegen die Unterdrückung Schwarzer Menschen in den USA mit einer klaren anti-imperialistischen Haltung, beispielsweise gegen den US-amerikanischen Krieg in Vietnam. „Der Sieg eines unterdrückten Volkes irgendwo auf der Welt ist ein Sieg für die Schwarzen in Amerika“, brachte Shakur diesen Internationalismus einmal auf den Punkt.
In den späten 1960ern schloss sie sich zuerst den Black Panthers an, die für Selbstverteidigung, Community-Programme und politische Bildung eintraten. Später wechselte sie in die Black Liberation Army (BLA), die vor allem direkte Aktionen gegen Polizei und Staat durchführte."
https://perspektive-online.net/2025/09/es-ist-unsere-pflicht-zu-gewinnen-zum-tod-von-assata-shakur/
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"We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA."
-
"We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA."
-
"We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA."
-
"We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA."
-
"We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA."
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#Assata #Shakur, of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, has died at the age of 78 in #Cuba, where she received political asylum in 1984.
More on Assata Shakur
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#Assata #Shakur, of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, has died at the age of 78 in #Cuba, where she received political asylum in 1984.
More on Assata Shakur
-
#Assata #Shakur, of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, has died at the age of 78 in #Cuba, where she received political asylum in 1984.
More on Assata Shakur
-
#Assata #Shakur, of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, has died at the age of 78 in #Cuba, where she received political asylum in 1984.
More on Assata Shakur
-
#Assata #Shakur, of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, has died at the age of 78 in #Cuba, where she received political asylum in 1984.
More on Assata Shakur
-
Assata Shakur, Black Liberation Army Legend, Passes Away in Exile in Cuba
Assata Shakur, a revolutionary Black Liberation Army fighter, who was granted political asylum in Cuba, has passed away at 78.
On Thursday, Shakur “died in Havana, Cuba, as a result of health conditions and her advanced age,” according to Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“At approximately 1:15 PM on September 25th, my mother, Assata Shakur, took her last earthly breath. Words cannot describe the depth of loss that I am feeling at this time,” Kakuya Shakur, her daughter, wrote on Facebook.
“I want to thank you for your loving prayers that continue to anchor me in the strength that I need in this moment. My spirit is overflowing in unison with all of you who are grieving with me at this time.”
Shakur, born in NYC, became political involved with attending Borough of Manhattan Community College. She partially traced her interest in communism to a 1964 debate about the Vietnam War with several African students attending Columbia University:
i continued saying the first thing that came into my head: that the U.S. was fighting communists because they wanted to take over everything. When someone asked me what communism was, i opened my mouth to answer, then realized i didn’t have the faintest idea. My image of a communist came from a cartoon. It was a spy with a black trench coat and a black hat pulled down over his face, slinking around corners…. I felt like a bona fide clown…. I knew i didn’t know what the hell communism was, and yet i’d been dead set against it…. I never forgot that day…. Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.
She joined the Black Panther Party and became a member of the Harlem branch. Like many other NYC black revolutionaries in the Panthers, she eventually joined the underground formation: the Black Liberation Army. She was renowned for being a serious revolutionary militant, having impeccable shot accuracy and participating in several clandestine actions.
She became subject to an extensive nationwide manhunt by the fascist US state. According to Panther Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, the FBI and local police “initiated a national search-and-destroy mission for suspected BLA members, collaborating in stakeouts that were the products of intensive political repression and counterintelligence campaigns like NEWKILL.” They “attempted to tie Assata to every suspected action of the BLA involving a woman.” The JTTF would later serve as the “coordinating body in the search for Assata and the renewed campaign to smash the BLA”, after her escape from prison
Shakur claimed that she was targeted by the FBI as a result of her involvement with the black liberation organizations. Specifically, documentary evidence suggests that Shakur was targeted by an investigation named CHESROB, which “attempted to hook former New York Panther Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur) to virtually every bank robbery or violent crime involving a black woman on the East Coast.” Although named after Shakur, CHESROB (like its predecessor, NEWKILL) was not limited to Shakur.
On May 2, 1973,, Assata Shakur, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli, were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike in East Brunswick by NJ state troopers, ensuing in a conflict and leading to the death of Zayd and the capture of Acoli and Shakur.
In 1979, Black Liberation Army members, under the leadership of Sekou Odinga, liberated Assata from prison and managed to help her flee to revolutionary Cuba where she was granted political asylum. This was inarguably one of the most important political actions of the century in the settler-colonial fascist United States.
The Cuban state faced tremendous pressure to release Assata and never waivered, maintaining a thorough, principled stance.
Her passing is a tremendous blow to the international revolutionary movement, but also a cause for celebration since she remained free, died in liberated terrain, and was never captured by the US slave state. We all mourn and celebrate her life, her resistance, and her memory.
Below we publish a letter she wrote to the African diaspora:
—
To My People By Assata Shakur (written while in prison)
4 July 1973Black brothers, Black sisters, i want you to know that i love you and i hope that somewhere in your hearts you have love for me. My name is Assata Shakur (slave name joanne chesimard), and i am a revolutionary. A Black revolutionary. By that i mean that i have declared war on all forces that have raped our women, castrated our men, and kept our babies empty-bellied.
I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heart-less robots who protect them and their property.
I am a Black revolutionary, and, as such, i am a victim of all the wrath, hatred, and slander that amerika is capable of. Like all other Black revolutionaries, amerika is trying to lynch me.
I am a Black revolutionary woman, and because of this i have been charged with and accused of every alleged crime in which a woman was believed to have participated. The alleged crimes in which only men were supposedly involved, i have been accused of planning. They have plastered pictures alleged to be me in post offices, airports, hotels, police cars, subways, banks, television, and newspapers. They have offered over fifty thousand dollars in rewards for my capture and they have issued orders to shoot on sight and shoot to kill.
I am a Black revolutionary, and, by definition, that makes me a part of the Black Liberation Army. The pigs have used their newspapers and TVs to paint the Black Liberation Army as vicious, brutal, mad-dog criminals. They have called us gangsters and gun molls and have compared us to such characters as john dillinger and ma barker. It should be clear, it must be clear to anyone who can think, see, or hear, that we are the victims. The victims and not the criminals.
It should also be clear to us by now who the real criminals are. Nixon and his crime partners have murdered hundreds of Third World brothers and sisters in Vietnam, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa. As was proved by Watergate, the top law enforcement officials in this country are a lying bunch of criminals. The president, two attorney generals, the head of the fbi, the head of the cia, and half the white house staff have been implicated in the Watergate crimes.
They call us murderers, but we did not murder over two hundred fifty unarmed Black men, women, and children, or wound thousands of others in the riots they provoked during the sixties. The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives. They call us murderers, but we were not responsible for the twenty-eight brother inmates and nine hostages murdered at attica. They call us murderers, but we did not murder and wound over thirty unarmed Black students at Jackson State—or Southern State, either.
They call us murderers, but we did not murder Martin Luther King, Jr., Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Nat Turner, James Chaney, and countless others. We did not murder, by shooting in the back, sixteen-year-old Rita Lloyd, eleven-year-old Rickie Bodden, or ten-year-old Clifford Glover. They call us murderers, but we do not control or enforce a system of racism and oppression that systematically murders Black and Third World people. Although Black people supposedly comprise about fifteen percent of the total amerikkkan population, at least sixty percent of murder victims are Black. For every pig that is killed in the so-called line of duty, there are at least fifty Black people murdered by the police.
Black life expectancy is much lower than white and they do their best to kill us before we are even born. We are burned alive in fire-trap tenements. Our brothers and sisters OD daily from heroin and methadone. Our babies die from lead poisoning. Millions of Black people have died as a result of indecent medical care. This is murder. But they have got the gall to call us murderers.
They call us kidnappers, yet Brother Clark Squires (who is accused, along with me, of murdering a new jersey state trooper) was kidnapped on April z, 1969, from our Black community and held on one million dollars’ ransom in the New York Panther 21 conspiracy case. He was acquitted on May 13, 1971, along with all the others, of 156 counts of conspiracy by a jury that took less than two hours to deliberate. Brother Squires was innocent. Yet he was kidnapped from his community and family. Over two years of his life was stolen, but they call us kidnappers. We did not kidnap the thousands of Brothers and Sisters held captive in amerika’s concentration camps. Ninety percent of the prison population in this country are Black and Third World people who can afford neither bail nor lawyers.
They call us thieves and bandits. They say we steal. But it was not we who stole millions of Black people from the continent of Africa. We were robbed of our language, of our Gods, of our culture, of our human dignity, of our labor, and of our lives. They call us thieves, yet it is not
we who rip off billions of dollars every year through tax evasions, illegal price fixing, embezzlement, consumer fraud, bribes, kickbacks, and swindles. They call us bandits, yet every time most Black people pick up our paychecks we are being robbed. Every time we walk into a store in our neighborhood we are being held up. And every time we pay our rent the landlord sticks a gun into our ribs.
They call us thieves, but we did not rob and murder millions of Indians by ripping off their homeland, then call ourselves pioneers. They call us bandits, but it is not we who are robbing Africa, Asia, and Latin America of their natural resources and freedom while the people who live there are sick and starving. The rulers of this country and their flunkies have committed some of the most brutal, vicious crimes in history. They are the bandits. They are the murderers. And they should be treated as such. These maniacs are not fit to judge me, Clark, or any other Black person on trial in amerika. Black people should and, inevitably, must determine our destinies.
Every revolution in history has been accomplished by actions, al-though words are necessary. We must create shields that protect us and spears that penetrate our enemies. Black people must learn how to struggle by struggling. We must learn by our mistakes.
I want to apologize to you, my Black brothers and sisters, for being on the new jersey turnpike. I should have known better. The turnpike is a checkpoint where Black people are stopped, searched, harassed, and assaulted. Revolutionaries must never be in too much of a hurry or make careless decisions. He who runs when the sun is sleeping will stumble many times.
Every time a Black Freedom Fighter is murdered or captured, the pigs try to create the impression that they have quashed the movement, destroyed our forces, and put down the Black Revolution. The pigs also try to give the impression that five or ten guerrillas are responsible for every revolutionary action carried out in amerika. That is nonsense. That is absurd. Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA.
There is, and always will be, until every Black man, woman, and child is free, a Black Liberation Army. The main function of the Black
Liberation Army at this time is to create good examples, to struggle for Black freedom, and to prepare for the future. We must defend ourselves and let no one disrespect us. We must gain our liberation by any means necessary.
It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains. -
Assata Shakur, Black Liberation Army Legend, Passes Away in Exile in Cuba
Assata Shakur, a revolutionary Black Liberation Army fighter, who was granted political asylum in Cuba, has passed away at 78.
On Thursday, Shakur “died in Havana, Cuba, as a result of health conditions and her advanced age,” according to Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“At approximately 1:15 PM on September 25th, my mother, Assata Shakur, took her last earthly breath. Words cannot describe the depth of loss that I am feeling at this time,” Kakuya Shakur, her daughter, wrote on Facebook.
“I want to thank you for your loving prayers that continue to anchor me in the strength that I need in this moment. My spirit is overflowing in unison with all of you who are grieving with me at this time.”
Shakur, born in NYC, became political involved with attending Borough of Manhattan Community College. She partially traced her interest in communism to a 1964 debate about the Vietnam War with several African students attending Columbia University:
i continued saying the first thing that came into my head: that the U.S. was fighting communists because they wanted to take over everything. When someone asked me what communism was, i opened my mouth to answer, then realized i didn’t have the faintest idea. My image of a communist came from a cartoon. It was a spy with a black trench coat and a black hat pulled down over his face, slinking around corners…. I felt like a bona fide clown…. I knew i didn’t know what the hell communism was, and yet i’d been dead set against it…. I never forgot that day…. Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.
She joined the Black Panther Party and became a member of the Harlem branch. Like many other NYC black revolutionaries in the Panthers, she eventually joined the underground formation: the Black Liberation Army. She was renowned for being a serious revolutionary militant, having impeccable shot accuracy and participating in several clandestine actions.
She became subject to an extensive nationwide manhunt by the fascist US state. According to Panther Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, the FBI and local police “initiated a national search-and-destroy mission for suspected BLA members, collaborating in stakeouts that were the products of intensive political repression and counterintelligence campaigns like NEWKILL.” They “attempted to tie Assata to every suspected action of the BLA involving a woman.” The JTTF would later serve as the “coordinating body in the search for Assata and the renewed campaign to smash the BLA”, after her escape from prison
Shakur claimed that she was targeted by the FBI as a result of her involvement with the black liberation organizations. Specifically, documentary evidence suggests that Shakur was targeted by an investigation named CHESROB, which “attempted to hook former New York Panther Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur) to virtually every bank robbery or violent crime involving a black woman on the East Coast.” Although named after Shakur, CHESROB (like its predecessor, NEWKILL) was not limited to Shakur.
On May 2, 1973,, Assata Shakur, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli, were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike in East Brunswick by NJ state troopers, ensuing in a conflict and leading to the death of Zayd and the capture of Acoli and Shakur.
In 1979, Black Liberation Army members, under the leadership of Sekou Odinga, liberated Assata from prison and managed to help her flee to revolutionary Cuba where she was granted political asylum. This was inarguably one of the most important political actions of the century in the settler-colonial fascist United States.
The Cuban state faced tremendous pressure to release Assata and never waivered, maintaining a thorough, principled stance.
Her passing is a tremendous blow to the international revolutionary movement, but also a cause for celebration since she remained free, died in liberated terrain, and was never captured by the US slave state. We all mourn and celebrate her life, her resistance, and her memory.
Below we publish a letter she wrote to the African diaspora:
—
To My People By Assata Shakur (written while in prison)
4 July 1973Black brothers, Black sisters, i want you to know that i love you and i hope that somewhere in your hearts you have love for me. My name is Assata Shakur (slave name joanne chesimard), and i am a revolutionary. A Black revolutionary. By that i mean that i have declared war on all forces that have raped our women, castrated our men, and kept our babies empty-bellied.
I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heart-less robots who protect them and their property.
I am a Black revolutionary, and, as such, i am a victim of all the wrath, hatred, and slander that amerika is capable of. Like all other Black revolutionaries, amerika is trying to lynch me.
I am a Black revolutionary woman, and because of this i have been charged with and accused of every alleged crime in which a woman was believed to have participated. The alleged crimes in which only men were supposedly involved, i have been accused of planning. They have plastered pictures alleged to be me in post offices, airports, hotels, police cars, subways, banks, television, and newspapers. They have offered over fifty thousand dollars in rewards for my capture and they have issued orders to shoot on sight and shoot to kill.
I am a Black revolutionary, and, by definition, that makes me a part of the Black Liberation Army. The pigs have used their newspapers and TVs to paint the Black Liberation Army as vicious, brutal, mad-dog criminals. They have called us gangsters and gun molls and have compared us to such characters as john dillinger and ma barker. It should be clear, it must be clear to anyone who can think, see, or hear, that we are the victims. The victims and not the criminals.
It should also be clear to us by now who the real criminals are. Nixon and his crime partners have murdered hundreds of Third World brothers and sisters in Vietnam, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa. As was proved by Watergate, the top law enforcement officials in this country are a lying bunch of criminals. The president, two attorney generals, the head of the fbi, the head of the cia, and half the white house staff have been implicated in the Watergate crimes.
They call us murderers, but we did not murder over two hundred fifty unarmed Black men, women, and children, or wound thousands of others in the riots they provoked during the sixties. The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives. They call us murderers, but we were not responsible for the twenty-eight brother inmates and nine hostages murdered at attica. They call us murderers, but we did not murder and wound over thirty unarmed Black students at Jackson State—or Southern State, either.
They call us murderers, but we did not murder Martin Luther King, Jr., Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Nat Turner, James Chaney, and countless others. We did not murder, by shooting in the back, sixteen-year-old Rita Lloyd, eleven-year-old Rickie Bodden, or ten-year-old Clifford Glover. They call us murderers, but we do not control or enforce a system of racism and oppression that systematically murders Black and Third World people. Although Black people supposedly comprise about fifteen percent of the total amerikkkan population, at least sixty percent of murder victims are Black. For every pig that is killed in the so-called line of duty, there are at least fifty Black people murdered by the police.
Black life expectancy is much lower than white and they do their best to kill us before we are even born. We are burned alive in fire-trap tenements. Our brothers and sisters OD daily from heroin and methadone. Our babies die from lead poisoning. Millions of Black people have died as a result of indecent medical care. This is murder. But they have got the gall to call us murderers.
They call us kidnappers, yet Brother Clark Squires (who is accused, along with me, of murdering a new jersey state trooper) was kidnapped on April z, 1969, from our Black community and held on one million dollars’ ransom in the New York Panther 21 conspiracy case. He was acquitted on May 13, 1971, along with all the others, of 156 counts of conspiracy by a jury that took less than two hours to deliberate. Brother Squires was innocent. Yet he was kidnapped from his community and family. Over two years of his life was stolen, but they call us kidnappers. We did not kidnap the thousands of Brothers and Sisters held captive in amerika’s concentration camps. Ninety percent of the prison population in this country are Black and Third World people who can afford neither bail nor lawyers.
They call us thieves and bandits. They say we steal. But it was not we who stole millions of Black people from the continent of Africa. We were robbed of our language, of our Gods, of our culture, of our human dignity, of our labor, and of our lives. They call us thieves, yet it is not
we who rip off billions of dollars every year through tax evasions, illegal price fixing, embezzlement, consumer fraud, bribes, kickbacks, and swindles. They call us bandits, yet every time most Black people pick up our paychecks we are being robbed. Every time we walk into a store in our neighborhood we are being held up. And every time we pay our rent the landlord sticks a gun into our ribs.
They call us thieves, but we did not rob and murder millions of Indians by ripping off their homeland, then call ourselves pioneers. They call us bandits, but it is not we who are robbing Africa, Asia, and Latin America of their natural resources and freedom while the people who live there are sick and starving. The rulers of this country and their flunkies have committed some of the most brutal, vicious crimes in history. They are the bandits. They are the murderers. And they should be treated as such. These maniacs are not fit to judge me, Clark, or any other Black person on trial in amerika. Black people should and, inevitably, must determine our destinies.
Every revolution in history has been accomplished by actions, al-though words are necessary. We must create shields that protect us and spears that penetrate our enemies. Black people must learn how to struggle by struggling. We must learn by our mistakes.
I want to apologize to you, my Black brothers and sisters, for being on the new jersey turnpike. I should have known better. The turnpike is a checkpoint where Black people are stopped, searched, harassed, and assaulted. Revolutionaries must never be in too much of a hurry or make careless decisions. He who runs when the sun is sleeping will stumble many times.
Every time a Black Freedom Fighter is murdered or captured, the pigs try to create the impression that they have quashed the movement, destroyed our forces, and put down the Black Revolution. The pigs also try to give the impression that five or ten guerrillas are responsible for every revolutionary action carried out in amerika. That is nonsense. That is absurd. Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA.
There is, and always will be, until every Black man, woman, and child is free, a Black Liberation Army. The main function of the Black
Liberation Army at this time is to create good examples, to struggle for Black freedom, and to prepare for the future. We must defend ourselves and let no one disrespect us. We must gain our liberation by any means necessary.
It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains. -
Assata Shakur
rest in power"Strong woman. Amazon.
Wear your scars like jewelry
cause they were bought with blood."https://www.whatimreading.net/p/assata-shakur-political-activist-dead
#AssataShakur #RIP #BlackPanthers #BlackLiberationArmy #Cuba
-
Assata Shakur
rest in power"Strong woman. Amazon.
Wear your scars like jewelry
cause they were bought with blood."https://www.whatimreading.net/p/assata-shakur-political-activist-dead
#AssataShakur #RIP #BlackPanthers #BlackLiberationArmy #Cuba
-
Assata Shakur
rest in power"Strong woman. Amazon.
Wear your scars like jewelry
cause they were bought with blood."https://www.whatimreading.net/p/assata-shakur-political-activist-dead
#AssataShakur #RIP #BlackPanthers #BlackLiberationArmy #Cuba
-
Assata Shakur
rest in power"Strong woman. Amazon.
Wear your scars like jewelry
cause they were bought with blood."https://www.whatimreading.net/p/assata-shakur-political-activist-dead
#AssataShakur #RIP #BlackPanthers #BlackLiberationArmy #Cuba
-
Assata Shakur
rest in power"Strong woman. Amazon.
Wear your scars like jewelry
cause they were bought with blood."https://www.whatimreading.net/p/assata-shakur-political-activist-dead
#AssataShakur #RIP #BlackPanthers #BlackLiberationArmy #Cuba
-
[G.R.K.]🌈🏳️⚧️Ⓐ💣¡NoPasarán! wrote the following post Sun, 13 Jul 2025 22:49:21 +0200 Kojo Bomani Sababu medical alert
https://www.abcf.net/blog/kojo-bomani-sababu-medical-alert/
"From: Spirit of Mandela <[email protected]> We received the below email from Kojo this morning, July 12, 2025: “I am sick as I write you. I cannot explain what the problem is. That is why I seek your assistance to ascertain what is happening. System of problem unknown, however my head is spinning several times daily. I complained […]"Je suis malade au moment où je vous écris. Je ne parviens pas à expliquer le problème. C'est pourquoi je sollicite votre aide pour comprendre ce qui se passe. La cause du problème est inconnue, mais j'ai la tête qui tourne plusieurs fois par jour. Je me suis plaint et une radio du cerveau a été faite. J'ai reçu des injections d'un produit médical. Je ressens à nouveau la même chose. Je me sens faible et étourdi. Je fais appel à vos camarades. J'ai besoin que vos camarades s'en occupent. Construisons pour gagner ! Kojo.
Nous vous invitons à contacter Butner FMC par courriel, fax ou téléphone pour savoir pourquoi ils n'accordent pas à cette situation médicale grave l'attention nécessaire pour déterminer la cause exacte de ce problème alarmant. Vous pouvez demander à parler à son conseiller. Si cela n'est pas possible, veuillez lui faire part de vos inquiétudes concernant ce problème médical récurrent. Soyez poli mais ferme en exigeant que Kojo reçoive les soins médicaux appropriés.
Kojo a 72 ans et est en prison depuis 1975. Il a d'abord été transféré à Butner pour une prothèse de hanche, qui a été réalisée avec succès. Nous devons maintenant soutenir notre aîné et veiller à ce qu'il reçoive les soins médicaux dont il a besoin.
Vous devez faire référence à Kojo sous le nom de Grailing Brown #39384-066.
Faites-nous savoir quelle réponse vous recevez : [email protected] .
Courriel : [email protected]
Téléphone : 919-575-3900
Télécopieur : 919-575-4801
Kojo Bomani Sababu story :
View PDF
#KojoBomaniSababu #blackliberationarmy -
[G.R.K.]🌈🏳️⚧️Ⓐ💣¡NoPasarán! wrote the following post Sun, 13 Jul 2025 22:49:21 +0200 Kojo Bomani Sababu medical alert
https://www.abcf.net/blog/kojo-bomani-sababu-medical-alert/
"From: Spirit of Mandela <[email protected]> We received the below email from Kojo this morning, July 12, 2025: “I am sick as I write you. I cannot explain what the problem is. That is why I seek your assistance to ascertain what is happening. System of problem unknown, however my head is spinning several times daily. I complained […]"Je suis malade au moment où je vous écris. Je ne parviens pas à expliquer le problème. C'est pourquoi je sollicite votre aide pour comprendre ce qui se passe. La cause du problème est inconnue, mais j'ai la tête qui tourne plusieurs fois par jour. Je me suis plaint et une radio du cerveau a été faite. J'ai reçu des injections d'un produit médical. Je ressens à nouveau la même chose. Je me sens faible et étourdi. Je fais appel à vos camarades. J'ai besoin que vos camarades s'en occupent. Construisons pour gagner ! Kojo.
Nous vous invitons à contacter Butner FMC par courriel, fax ou téléphone pour savoir pourquoi ils n'accordent pas à cette situation médicale grave l'attention nécessaire pour déterminer la cause exacte de ce problème alarmant. Vous pouvez demander à parler à son conseiller. Si cela n'est pas possible, veuillez lui faire part de vos inquiétudes concernant ce problème médical récurrent. Soyez poli mais ferme en exigeant que Kojo reçoive les soins médicaux appropriés.
Kojo a 72 ans et est en prison depuis 1975. Il a d'abord été transféré à Butner pour une prothèse de hanche, qui a été réalisée avec succès. Nous devons maintenant soutenir notre aîné et veiller à ce qu'il reçoive les soins médicaux dont il a besoin.
Vous devez faire référence à Kojo sous le nom de Grailing Brown #39384-066.
Faites-nous savoir quelle réponse vous recevez : [email protected] .
Courriel : [email protected]
Téléphone : 919-575-3900
Télécopieur : 919-575-4801
Kojo Bomani Sababu story :
View PDF
#KojoBomaniSababu #blackliberationarmy -
Our Burning Memory: Social War & The Combatants for Black Liberation
“I had rationalized the world and the world had rejected me on the basis of color prejudice. Since no agreement was possible on the level of reason, I threw myself back toward unreason.”
– Frantz Fanon, Black Skin White MasksOur history is a history of names of the dead.
Oscar Grant, Kimani Gray, Alton Sterling, Freddy Gray, Brionna Taylor, Mike Brown, Timothy Green, Kajeme Powell, Vonderitt Myers, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sean Bell, Rekia Boyd, Sonya Massey, Ta’Kiya Young, and on, and on, and on….
Since about 2015, when I first found people who were keeping track, the average number of people killed by police every year is about 1,500 people. 1,500 unique individuals whose lives were snuffed out, whose absence ripples across a whole constellation of relations – relatives, friends, loved ones, communities, etc. That, of course, is only explicit murders, not a variety of different forms of death in custody that are also murders, not harassment, not brutality, not sexual assault and rape.
So great are our dead, and at every turn they should be honored and remembered. Who remembers them and honors them better than our fighters? But…who are our fighters? Who makes note of and remembers them?
Our history is a history of defeat, and that defeat has us adopting the worldview of the enemy, has us accepting the limits of our chains. The left wing of capital, the self professed revolutionaries and yes even many anarchists, have adopted a stance of self victimization. In shock from the violence of oppression, the daily blood quota to keep a system of racial caste domination functioning, many will flee from what is asked of us, talking about safety before talking of fire and gunpowder – if they ever do. They will say “White Bodies To The Front!”, “Dismantling White Supremacy is White People’s Work!” as if someone could ever fight in place of us. They will tell people to stay out of the streets, to stay in line, to not come out before ever thinking of picking up a rock and a stick. They will talk infinitely about the strength of the police, but will never talk of their weaknesses.
When those few brave individuals, no longer accepting the daily misery and humiliation, no longer accepting the limitations thrust upon us by the color of our skin, strike out in displays of ferocity and courage, the activists and revolutionaries rush in to spit upon their memory. They’re adventurists. Individual action doesn’t do anything. Your actions are going to bring repression upon us. You’re making us look bad. You’re a fed. That was a false flag. They’re not affiliated with us, we’re the good ones. We’re the docile ones. We’re the cowardly ones who never dare to strike against our chains.
This tension is notable in looking at who is worth remembering. We talk of the innocent, the unarmed killed by the police and vigilante. If the innocent deserve our support, the guilty do doubly so. So much breath is wasted in trying to justify why so and so isn’t a criminal, was innocent, didn’t deserve to die. As though all our other kin deserve death. All the while the dominant order continues to stack our bodies because they see crime not in the action but in the origin – the birth in black skin.
I do not identify with this mythical figure of innocence – a white figure, an appeal to white morality. In the figure of the shoplifter, the drug dealer, the prostitute, the carjacker, the shooter I will always see more of myself. I know what is done is incidental, irrelevant, an excuse to play out fantasies of violence against black people, a desire to punish the Black Other to affirm the Goodness of White.
In an act of reclaiming the memory of the guilty, of uplifting our fighters I wish to talk about two particular individuals – Christopher Monfort and Korryn Gaines.
Our Memory Is A Burning Fuse
“My intentions are the best for the city and the country. The things I’m accused of are selfless acts. I didn’t get anything out of them.”
– Christopher Monfort, Seattle Times InterviewOctober 22nd. Smoke rises from the Seattle City Maintenance Facility – multiple cop cars have burst into flames. A note is left at the scene referencing the video of King County Sheriff Paul Schene repeatedly punching 15 year old Malika Calhoun who is held in custody.
The perpetrator gets away, the attack remains unsolved.
10PM on the 31st, a cold Halloween night, and a vehicle drives through the streets of Seattle’s Central District. It pulls up next to an SPD patrol car and the window rolls down. The officers turn their heads to look over and from the darkness of the vehicle they are greeted not with a face, but with a barrel of a rifle. It opens its mouth to speak.
KRAK KRAK KRAK.
This exchange of speech in a language the police know so well lasts less than a minute before the rifle disappears into the darkness of the car. The vehicle quickly turns around and speeds off from the direction it came.
A look back over the scene: An SPD patrol car riddled with bullets, one pig slumped in his seat dead, the other injured.
“And when we die there ain’t no fireworks or fuckin parades”
– Bambu, Since I Was A YouthNovember 6th, the armed death cult of SPD hold a public memorial – a procession through the city they occupy, a show of force. Around the same time out in Tukwila a snitch, a cop without a uniform, calls in a suspicious vehicle that matches the description of the vehicle that opened fire on the occupying army. The enemy encroaches on an apartment complex, a man brandishes a 9mm Glock and flees up the stairwell. The enemy approaches, the man pops out from the corner putting the gun into the cops face and pulls the trigger – click – he forgot to chamber a round. He goes down in a hail of gunfire into his head and stomach.
The enemy enters the man’s apartment. They find a small armory – a bolt action rifles and 2 semi-auto rifles, a shotgun, another .45 handgun, homemade explosives and firebombs and booby traps.
Ballistic and DNA forensics identify this man – Christopher Monfort – as the arsonist and gunman. Despite all odds he survives, now paralyzed from the waist down with a bullet lodged in his spine and with brain damage.
“So when the system seems to break down what do we do? We march, we protest, we form groups and the police scowl at us on the sides of the road and talk about the overtime they’re getting. If you stand close enough you can hear them. They have no intent on listening to a thousand or ten thousand people marching for police to stop their brutality. When you see a couple police officers brutalizing or murdering someone there’s always a few, maybe half a dozen, of their friends around them. They’re not gonna tell on their buddies. They’re not crossing the blue line.”
-Christopher Monfort, Final Statement to the CourtDespite everything, Chris was able to speak for himself. He was sentenced to life in prison. He died in 2017 in his cell at Walla Walla State prison, allegedly from overdose. Anarchists continued to support him until his death.
—————————————————————-
“’She always was a little radical, and she was hardcore about certain stuff. She did a lot of research … laws of the land,’ Rhanda [Korryn’s Mother] said. ‘And right after Freddie Gray got killed, it amplified because he was a neighbor to us. We used to see him.’”
– Interview with the Mother of Korryn GainesMarch 10th, 2016. A woman is pulled over for driving a vehicle with a piece of cardboard where a license plate should be. She is ordered out of her vehicle as a cop threatens to taze her. “You are not going to kidnap me, you are going to have to kill me.”
She is arrested for a disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. She is held for two days in isolation with neither food nor water.
August 1st, police come to her door to serve a warrant for missed court dates. The door is opened, the the cops are greeted with a shotgun to their face. They retreat and call for back up and a 6 hour standoff ensues.
Initially they try to frame the situation as a kidnapping but have to roll it back as a Facebook livestream of the stand off goes viral, with her calmly in her home and the occasional shot of her children in the background eating and playing. She talks about the situation while friends and followers cheer her on and tell her to hold strong.
In part of the video, Gaines asks her 5 year old son “Who is outside?” He answers “The police.” She asks why; “To kill us.” He responds.
Toward the end of the standoff, the Baltimore Police – with compliance from Facebook – gain access to her account, shut off the live stream and deactivate the account. Within moments of the live stream going down, the cops shoot through the wall, killing Korryn and wounding her child.
“’Officer shot through a wall and couldn’t even see nothing,’ Rhanda said. She describes the sentiment of the officer as, ‘Nerve of this little Black girl to stay in this house when we said to come out!’”
– Interview with the Mother of Korryn GainesThe Black Liberation Army Is A Living Tension
“…our final consideration is whether or not these masses must centralize their organizing (not to be confused with the obvious need to coordinate their efforts!). To that I answer with an emphatic, ‘no!’ and further, I contend that such centralization will only make it easier for our oppressors to identify and level repression upon us – prolonging the crisis our generation must deal with.”
– Russell Maroon Shoatz, The Dragon and the HydraThese two stories are a drop in the ocean – there’s a thousand stories like these. Hidden, buried, choked out by our enemies and the cowards who enable them. Names and acts we will never know. The point in recounting and connecting these stories, beyond the inspiration of individual action, is to describe a living tension.
Once is an act of insanity. Twice is a lone wolf. A thousand times begins to look like an army.
While revolutionaries waste their ink and breath talking of conditions, of “the people” not being ready, the past two decades has been the informal spread of practices and the development of ad hoc fighting formations. The shooters, the rock throwers, the looters, the arsonists, the getaway drivers. A black liberation army – a de facto informal network of fighters across the territories dominated by the american state – has been building and fighting right before our very eyes.
Many look at this and see disorganization, a child needing the strong hand of the Patriarch to guide them, whether in the form of the vanguard party or the leader, to the real means of freedom that these chaotic and ungrateful negros will never grasp on their own. But any closer look shows that we are very obviously organized and coordinated – perhaps the most organized forces in these territories and perhaps it’s the revolutionaries who need a lesson in organization.
Or better yet, the revolutionaries need to be pushed out of our way.
Yes, the organization, the coordination, the fighting spirit is all there. What is needed is for us to consciously recognize this – that we aren’t fighting alone, that to some degree or another we have built upon the ideas, strategies and practices of others, refined in the forge of street combat. This consciousness has been developing over the past 20 years and through bitter and bloody experience will continue to develop is greater and lesser degree, in different ways, in different territories.
I don’t have a plan or a great analysis to give you to beautifully close this out. All I can offer is this; I see tensions that need to be pushed, memories that need to be reclaimed, and developing practices that need to be analyzed. Through writing, through video, through music, performance, crime, and practice in the instances of street combat to come I seek to spread and clarify these and be in dialogue with the development of the black liberation army, walking alongside it as an anarchist and developing it as a participant.
If nothing else has been made more clear to me, I can clearly see that many individuals in many different territories see a similar trajectory and, like me, awkwardly stumble towards it. Just as I develop and dialogue with local and regional tensions, I hope to dialogue with you all, sharing our ideas, sharpening our practices.
I cannot say what the future holds, victory or defeat. All I can say for certain is that no savior from on high will deliver us from the position we find ourselves in; that our destiny is in our hands alone, so let’s make sure our hands are armed.
In Memory Of Our Fallen; Let us turn their cities into funeral pyres.
In Memory Of Our Fighters; Let us honor your names with fire and gunpowder.
Peace By Piece
(A)Our Burning Memory: Social War & The Combatants for Black Liberation
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=17424
#anarchist #antiPolice #blackLiberation #blackLiberationArmy #northAmerica #policeViolence