Assata Shakur, Activist of Black Liberation, exhausted in Cuba, died at 78

Asa Shakur, an activist with the army of the Black Liberation Army, sharpened in Cuba for four decades, has died in Havana, at 78 years old.

Shakur, also known as Joan Chesimard, died Thursday from unspecified health conditions and “advanced age”, according to a statement by the Cuba Foreign Ministry on Friday.

She has been on the list of the most sought after FBI terrorists for years since in 1979 escaped from a women’s prison in New Jersey, where she served a life sentence after her sentence for murder in a shootout that kills a state in New Jersey and fellow activists.

Shakur maintained her innocence and reappeared in Cuba in 1984, where she received asylum from former President Fidel Castro.

Shakur was born Joanna Deborah Byron in July 1947 in New York and was raised between the city and Wilmington, North Carolina. She was the aunt and godfather of the late rapper Tupak Shakur.

She joined the political activism for Black Americans while in college, first with the Black Panther Party, a group that favors radical resistance to racism in the United States and developed schools and other social services for blacks.

The movement was heavily investigated by the FBI, which considered it a threat to the United States. Shakur also joined the more radical Black Liberation Army, whose members consisted of former black panthers.

Shakur traveled with fellow activists in 1973 when their car was stopped by New Jersey officers. A shootout followed, which was killed by state soldier Werner Forster and his colleague activist Zaed Malik Shakur. Asa Shakur was also injured in the shootout.

She was arrested and tried for the death of Fierster, but she denied shooting him and said her trial before an all -white jury was unfair.

She told NBC News in a Interview from 1998 Shot in Havana that she escaped because she was afraid of her life and that she would never get justice in the United States.

Her exile in Cuba was among the many thorny questions between the Communist Island and the United States.

Shakur was the first woman to be added to the list of the most sought after FBI terrorists. Each agency and New Jersey offered a $ 1 million award for information leading to its arrest.

She was celebrated in music with her name, presented in songs, including the 1998 song. “Rebel without pause” by HIP HOP Group Public Enemy and “Song for Assata“From the Common rapper.

Shakur survived her daughter Kakuya Shakur, who wrote on Facebook: “Words cannot describe the depth of the loss I experience at that time.”