Assata Shakur Talking From Exile About Cuba and U.S.A Government

“We had to learn that we’re beau­ti­ful. We had to relearn some­thing force­fully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the import­ance of com­ing togeth­er and being act­ive. That fueled me.

We knew what a token was then. Today young people don’t see Con­doleezza Rice or Colin Pow­ell as tokens. That’s a problem.

I real­ized that I was con­nec­ted to Africa. I wasn’t just a Colored girl. I was part of a whole world that wanted a bet­ter life. I’m part of a major­ity and not a minority. 

My life has been a life of growth. If you’re not grow­ing, you’re not going to under­stand real love. If you’re not reach­ing out to help oth­ers then you’re shrink­ing. My life has been act­ive. I’m not a spec­tat­or. We can’t afford to be spec­tat­ors while our lives deteri­or­ate. We have to truly love our people and work to make that love stronger.”~ Assata Shakur

Habana/Cuba 2002, Inter­view­er Nisa Islam Muhammad

“When I was in the Black Pan­ther Party, they (United States) called us ter­ror­ists. How dare they call us ter­ror­ists when we were being ter­ror­ized? Ter­ror was a con­stant part of my life. I was liv­ing under apartheid in North Car­o­lina. We lived under police terror.

“People have to see what’s really hap­pen­ing. Cuba has nev­er attacked any­body. Cuba has solid­ar­ity with oth­er coun­tries. They send teach­ers and doc­tors to help the people of oth­er coun­tries. It believes in solidarity.

“To see Cuba called a ter­ror­ist coun­try is an insult to real­ity. If people come to Cuba, they’ll see a real­ity unlike what they’re told in Amer­ica. This coun­try wants to help, not hurt. The U.S. gov­ern­ment has lied to its people. The U.S. gov­ern­ment invents lies like Cuba is a ter­ror­ist coun­try to give a pre­text to des­troy it.

“Ron­ald Reagan con­vinced people that the little coun­try Gren­ada was a threat to the big United States, that allowed the U.S. to go into Grenada.

“The people in the U.S. have to struggle against a sys­tem of organ­ized lies. When Pres­id­ent Carter was here they said Cuba was involved in bio­tech­no­logy to cre­ate bio­ter­ror­ism, but now they back track and say it isn’t so. They lied and they con­tin­ue to lie about Cuba.

“Look at the struggle with Eli­an (Gonzales). Look at the ter­ror­ism com­mit­ted by the Miami ter­ror­ists, the Miami Mafia. Those people (Cubans who fled after the revolu­tion) are ex-plant­a­tion own­ers, exploiters of people. They want to make Cuba the same kind of place it was before but that’s not going to happen.”

Her name means “she who struggles,” and that is the life she’s led. From grow­ing up in racist Wilm­ing­ton, N.C., to her act­iv­ism with the Black Pan­thers and the Black Lib­er­a­tion Army (BLA), Ms. Shak­ur has struggled:

“My life wasn’t beau­ti­ful and cre­at­ive before I became polit­ic­ally act­ive. My life was totally changed when I began to struggle.”

But that’s what it means to be Black in the Amer­icas, a life of struggle. Blacks in Cuba and the United States share a his­tory of slavery yet their paths sep­ar­ate in how they view their lives. I asked Sis. Assata what she saw as the dif­fer­ences between Blacks in Cuba and the United States:

“We’ve (Blacks in Amer­ica) for­got­ten where we came from. People in Cuba have not lost their memory. They don’t suf­fer from his­tor­ic­al and cul­tur­al amne­sia. Cuba has less mater­i­al wealth than Amer­ica but are able to do so much with so little because they know where they come from.

“This was a maroon coun­try. The maroons escaped from slavery and star­ted their own com­munity. Every­one needs to identi­fy with their own his­tory. If they know their his­tory, they can con­struct their future.

“The Cubans identi­fy with those who fought against slavery. They don’t identi­fy with the slave mas­ter. Those who made the revolu­tion won’t let the people for­get what happened to them. The people here ser­i­ously study history.

“We have to de-Euro­centrize the his­tory we learn. We have to give the real per­spect­ive of what happened. We have to cre­ate a world to know and remem­ber our own. I had no idea how ignor­ant I was until I came to Cuba. I had no know­ledge of authors, film­makers and artists out­side of Amer­ica. We believe we’re free but we’re not. Our world vis­ion is tainted.

“We are oppressed people in the U.S. and don’t even know it. We have few­er oppor­tun­it­ies to be doc­tors and law­yers as tuition increases. Our prob­lem is that we want to belong to a soci­ety that wants to oppress us. We want to be the plant­a­tion own­er. In Cuba, we want to change the plant­a­tion to a col­lect­ive farm.”

The time is 1973 and an incid­ent of what would now be called “racial pro­fil­ing” takes place on the New Jer­sey Turn­pike. Ms. Shak­ur, act­ively involved in the Black Lib­er­a­tion Army (BLA), is trav­el­ing with Malik Zay­ad Shak­ur (no rela­tion) and Sun­di­ata Acoli. State troop­ers stop them, reportedly because of a broken headlight.

A troop­er also explains they were “sus­pi­cious” because they had Ver­mont license plates. The three are made to exit the car with their hands up. All of a sud­den, shots were fired.

That much every­body seems to agree on. What happened next changed the course of his­tory for Assata Shak­ur. Shots were fired and when all was said and done, state troop­er Wern­er Foer­ster and Malik Shak­ur were killed. Ms. Shak­ur and Mr. Acoli were charged with the death of state troop­er Foerster.

The tri­al found them both guilty. The ver­dict was no sur­prise. But many ques­tion the racial injustice by the all-White jury and admit­ted per­jury by the trial’s star witness:

“I was shot with my arms in the air. My wounds could not have happened unless my arms were in the air. The bul­let went in under my arm and traveled past my clavicle. It is med­ic­ally impossible for that to hap­pen if my arms were down.

“I was sen­tenced to life plus 30 years by an all-White jury. What I saw in pris­on was wall-to-wall Black flesh in chains. Women caged in cells. But we’re the ter­ror­ists. It just doesn’t make sense.”

In a let­ter to Kofi Owusu dated August 24, 1973 from the Middle­sex County Jail in New Brun­swick, N.J., she describes the life behind bars:

“i (sic) can’t begin to ima­gine how many sis­ters have been locked in this cell (the deten­tion cell) and all the agony they felt and tears they shed. This is the cell where they put the sis­ters who are hav­ing hard times, kick­ing habits or who had been driv­en mad from too much oppression.

“It’s moods like this that make me aware of how glad i am to be a revolu­tion­ary. i know who our enemy is, and i know that me and these swine can­not live peace­fully on the same plan­et. i am a part of a fam­ily of field nig­gas and that is some­thing very precious.

“So many of my sis­ters are so com­pletely unaware of who the real crim­in­als and dogs are. They blame them­selves for being hungry; they hate them­selves for sur­viv­ing the best way they know how, to see so much fear, doubt, hurt, and self hatred is the most pain­ful part of being in this con­cen­tra­tion camp.

“Any­way, in spite of all, i feel a breeze behind my neck, turn­ing to a hur­ricane and when i take a deep breath I can smell freedom.”

She spent six and a half years in pris­on, two of those in sol­it­ary con­fine­ment. Dur­ing that time she gave birth to her daugh­ter Kakuya.

In 1979, she was lib­er­ated by com­rades in a dar­ing escape that con­tin­ues to infuri­ate the New Jer­sey State Troop­ers. There was a nation-wide search for her. In 1984 she went to Cuba and was united with her daughter:

“When I came to Cuba, I expec­ted every­one to look like Fidel (Castro). But you see everything and every­one is dif­fer­ent. I saw Black, White, Asi­ans all liv­ing and work­ing togeth­er. The Cuban women were so eleg­antly dressed and groomed.

“People would just talk to me in the street. I would won­der why until I real­ized that people are not afraid of each oth­er. People in Amer­ica are afraid to walk the streets; it’s not like that here.

“I real­ized that I had some heal­ing to do. I didn’t know the extent of my wounds until I came to Cuba. I began to heal with my work, rais­ing my daugh­ter and being a part of a cul­ture that appre­ci­ates you.

“Liv­ing in Cuba means being appre­ci­ated by soci­ety, not depre­ci­ated by soci­ety. No mat­ter what we do in Amer­ica, no mat­ter what we earn, we’re still not appre­ci­ated by Amer­ic­an society.”

Who are the people on the tiny island nation of Cuba only 90 miles from Flor­ida? Who are these people that dare to say “no” to Amer­ica? Who are these 11 mil­lion revolu­tion­ar­ies that res­ist in the face of the most power­ful coun­try in the world:

“Cubans feel like they have power. No mat­ter who they are. They see them­selves as part of a world. We just see ourselves as part of a ’hood. They identi­fy with oppressed people all over the world.

“When the Angolans were fight­ing against South Africa, they asked Cuba for help. Sol­diers were sent. They went gladly.

“Cubans have a dif­fer­ent per­spect­ive of out­rage and justice. A White Cuban sol­dier came back from fight­ing and expressed his dis­dain for the Whites that were sup­port­ing apartheid.

“I just looked at him because in my mind he was White like they were but that’s not how he saw him­self. He couldn’t under­stand how the South Afric­ans could sup­port apartheid.

“Any­time you have a coun­try that makes people feel indig­nant about atro­cit­ies, wherever they are, that coun­try has a spe­cial place in my heart. Cuba is try­ing to end exploit­a­tion and atrocities.”

For nearly 20 years, she has carved out a life for her­self in Cuba. She lives in exile and while many rejoice in her new life, Amer­ica has not for­got­ten her alleged crimes. In 1997, the New Jer­sey State Troop­ers wrote to the Pope ask­ing for the Pontiff’s help in hav­ing her extradited.

In the absence of nor­mal­ized rela­tions with Cuba, there is no bind­ing extra­di­tion treaty between Cuba and the United States.

What is it like to live in exile? What is it like to be away from fam­ily and friends:

“Liv­ing in exile is hard. I miss my fam­ily and friends. I miss the cul­ture, the music, how people talk, and their cre­ativ­ity. I miss the look of recog­ni­tion Black women give each oth­er, the under­stand­ing we express without say­ing a word.

“I adjus­ted by learn­ing to under­stand what was going on in the world. The Cubans helped me to adjust. I learned joys in life by learn­ing oth­er cul­tures. It was a priv­ilege to come here to a rich culture.

“I had a big fear that the Cubans would hate me when I arrived. They are very soph­ist­ic­ated. They were able to sep­ar­ate the people from Amer­ica, like me, from the government.”

What mes­sage does she have for the youth of our people? What does she want people to know about her life:

“I don’t see myself as that dif­fer­ent from sis­ters who struggle for social justice. In the ’60s it was easi­er to identi­fy racism. There were signs that told you where you belonged. We had to struggle to elim­in­ate apartheid in the South. Now we have to know the oth­er forms that exist today.

“We had to learn that we’re beau­ti­ful. We had to relearn some­thing force­fully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the import­ance of com­ing togeth­er and being act­ive. That fueled me.

“We knew what a token was then. Today young people don’t see Con­doleezza Rice or Colin Pow­ell as tokens. That’s a problem.

“I real­ized that I was con­nec­ted to Africa. I wasn’t just a Colored girl. I was part of a whole world that wanted a bet­ter life. I’m part of a major­ity and not a minor­ity. My life has been a life of growth. If you’re not grow­ing, you’re not going to under­stand real love. If you’re not reach­ing out to help oth­ers then you’re shrink­ing. My life has been act­ive. I’m not a spectator.

“We can’t afford to be spec­tat­ors while our lives deteri­or­ate. We have to truly love our people and work to make that love stronger.”

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Gata Malandra

Edit­or / Research­er at No Bounds

Gata is a music and arts lov­er, stud­ied anthro­po­logy, art man­age­ment and media pro­duc­tion ded­ic­at­ing most of her time to cre­at­ive pro­jects pro­duced by No Bounds.

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