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by Assata Shakur
My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century
escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I
was left with no other choice than to flee from the
political repression, racism and violence that dominate
the US government's policy towards people of color.
I am an ex-political prisoner, and I have been living in
exile in Cuba since 1984.
I have been a political activist most of my life, and
although the U.S. government has done everything in
its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor
have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in
various struggles: the black liberation movement, the
student rights movement, and the movement to end
the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party.
By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the
number one organization targeted by the FBI's
COINTELPRO program. Because the Black Panther
Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J.
Edgar Hoover called it "greatest threat to the internal
security of the country" and vowed to destroy it and
its leaders and activists.
In 1978, my case was one of many cases bought
before the United Nations Organization in a petition
filed by the National Conference of Black Lawyers,
the National Alliance Against Racist and Political
Repression, and the United Church of Christ
Commission for Racial Justice, exposing the
existence of political prisoners in the United States,
their political persecution, and the cruel and inhuman
treatment they receive in US prisons.
According to the report: The FBI and the New York
Police Department in particular, charged and accused
Assata Shakur of participating in attacks on law
enforcement personnel and widely circulated such
charges and accusations among police agencies and
units. The FBI and the NYPD further charged her as
being a leader of the Black Liberation Army which the
government and its respective agencies described as
an organization engaged in the shooting of police
officers. This description of the Black Liberation
Army and the accusation of Assata Shakur's
relationship to it was widely circulated by government
agents among police agencies and units. As a result of
these activities by the government, Ms. Shakur
became a hunted person; posters in police precincts
and banks described her as being involved in serious
criminal activities; she was highlighted on the FBI's
most wanted list; and to police at all levels she became
a 'shoot- to-kill' target."
I was falsely accused in six different "criminal cases"
and in all six of these cases I was eventually acquitted
or the charges were dismissed. The fact that I was
acquitted or that the charges were dismissed, did not
mean that I received justice in the courts, that was
certainly not the case. It only meant that the
"evidence" presented against me was so flimsy and
false that my innocence became evident. This political
persecution was part and parcel of the 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.
On May 2, 1973 I, along with Zayd Malik Shakur
and Sundiata Acoli were stopped on the New Jersey
Turnpike, supposedly for a "faulty tail light."
Sundiata Acoli got out of the car to determine why we
were stopped. Zayd and I remained in the car. State
trooper Harper then came to the car, opened the door
and began to question us. Because we were black,
and riding in a car with Vermont license plates, he
claimed he became "suspicious." He then drew his
gun, pointed it at us, and told us to put our hands up
in the air, in front of us, where he could see them. I
complied and in a split second, there was a sound that
came from outside the car, there was a sudden
movement, and I was shot once with my arms held
up in the air, and then once again from the back. Zayd
Malik Shakur was later killed, trooper Werner
Foerster was killed, and even though trooper Harper
admitted that he shot and killed Zayd Malik Shakur,
under the New Jersey felony murder law, I was
charged with killing both Zayd Malik Shakur, who
was my closest friend and comrade, and charged in
the death of trooper Forester. Never in my life have I
felt such grief. Zayd had vowed to protect me, and to
help me to get to a safe place, and it was clear that he
had lost his life, trying to protect both me and
Sundiata. Although he was also unarmed, and the
gun that killed trooper Foerster was found under
Zayd's leg, Sundiata Acoli, who was captured later,
was also charged with both deaths. Neither Sundiata
Acoli nor I ever received a fair trial. We were both
convicted in the news media way before our trials.
No news media was ever permitted to interview us,
although the New Jersey police and the FBI fed
stories to the press on a daily basis. In 1977, I was
convicted by an all- white jury and sentenced to life
plus 33 years in prison. In 1979, fearing that I would
be murdered in prison, and knowing that I would
never receive any justice, I was liberated from prison,
aided by committed comrades who understood the
depths of the injustices in my case, and who were
also extremely fearful for my life.
The U.S. Senate's 1976 Church Commission report
on intelligence operations inside the USA, revealed
that "The FBI has attempted covertly to influence the
public's perception of persons and organizations by
disseminating derogatory information to the press,
either anonymously or through "friendly" news
contacts." This same policy is evidently still very
much in effect today.
On December 24, 1997, The New Jersey State called
a press conference to announce that New Jersey State
Police had written a letter to Pope John Paul II asking
him to intervene on their behalf and to aid in having
me extradited back to New Jersey prisons. The New
Jersey State Police refused to make their letter public.
Knowing that they had probably totally distort the
facts, and attempted to get the Pope to do the devils
work in the name of religion, I decided to write the
Pope to inform him about the reality of' "justice" for
black people in the State of New Jersey and in the
United States.
In January of 1998, during the pope's visit to Cuba, I
agreed to do an interview with NBC journalist Ralph
Penza around my letter to the Pope, about my
experiences in New Jersey court system, and about
the changes I saw in the United States and it's
treatment of Black people in the last 25 years. I
agreed to do this interview because I saw this secret
letter to the Pope as a vicious, vulgar, publicity
maneuver on the part of the New Jersey State Police,
and as a cynical attempt to manipulate Pope John Paul
II. I have lived in Cuba for many years, and was
completely out of touch with the sensationalist,
dishonest, nature of the establishment media today. It
is worse today than it was 30 years ago. After years
of being victimized by the "establishment" media it
was naive of me to hope that I might finally get the
opportunity to tell "my side of the story." Instead of
an interview with me, what took place was a "staged
media event" in three parts, full of distortions,
inaccuracies and outright lies. NBC purposely
misrepresented the facts. Not only did NBC spend
thousands of dollars promoting this "exclusive
interview series" on NBC, they also spent a great deal
of money advertising this "exclusive interview" on
black radio stations and also placed notices in local
newspapers.
DISTORTIONS AND LIES IN THE NBC SERIES
In an NBC interview Gov. Whitman was quoted as
saying that "this has nothing to do with race, this had
everything to do with crime." Either Gov. Whitman is
completely unfamiliar with the facts in my case, or
her sensitivity to racism and to the plight of black
people and other people of color in the United States
is at a sub-zero level. In 1973 the trial in Middlesex
County had to be stopped because of the
overwhelming racism expressed in the jury room.
The court was finally forced to rule that the entire jury
panel had been contaminated by racist comments like
"If she's black, she's guilty." In an obvious effort to
prevent us from being tried by "a jury of our peers the
New Jersey courts ordered that a jury be selected
from Morris County, New Jersey where only 2.2
percent of the population was black and 97.5 percent
of potential jurors were white. In a study done in
Morris County, one of the wealthiest counties in the
country, 92 percent of the registered voters said that
they were familiar with the case through the news
media, and 72 percent believed we were guilty based
on pretrial publicity. During the jury selction process
in Morris County, white supremacists from the
National Social White People's Party, wearing
Swastikas, demonstrated carrying signs reading
"SUPPORT WHITE POLICE." The trial was later
moved back to Middlesex County where 70 percent
thought I was guilty based on pretrial publicity I was
tried by an all-white jury, where the presumption of
innocence was not the criteria for jury selection.
Potential jurors were merely asked if they could "put
their prejudices aside, and "render a fair verdict." The
basic reality in the United States is that being black is
a crime and black people are always "suspects" and
an accusation is usually a conviction. Most white
people still think that being a "black militant" or a
"black revolutionary" is tantamount to being guilty of
some kind of crime. The current situation in New
Jersey's prisons, underlines the racism that dominates
the politics of the state of New Jersey, in particular
and in the U.S. as a whole. Although the population
of New Jersey is approximately 78 percent white,
more than 75 percent of New Jersey's prison
population is made up of blacks and Latinos. 80
percent of the women in Jersey prisons are people of
color. That may not seem like racism to Gov.
Whitman, but it reeks of of racism to us.
The NBC story implied that Governor Christie
Whitman raised the reward for my capture based on
my interview with NBC. The fact of the matter is that
she has been campaigning since she was elected into
office to double the reward for my capture. In 1994,
she appointed Col. Carl Williams who immediately
vowed to make my capture a priority. In 1995, Gov.
Whitman sought to "match a $25,000 departmental
appropriation sponsored by an "unidentified
legislator." I watched a tape of Gov. Whitman's
"testimony" in her interview with NBC. She gave a
very dramatic, exaggerated version of what
happened, but there is no evidence whatsoever to
support her claim that Trooper Foerster had "four
bullets in him at least, and then they got up and with
his own gun, fired two bullets into his head." She
claimed that she was writing Janet Reno for federal
assistance in my capture, based on what she saw in
the NBC interview. If this is the kind of
"information" that is being passed on to Janet Reno
and the Pope, it is clear that the facts have been totally
distorted. Whitman also claimed that my return to
prison should be a condition for "normalizing
relations with Cuba". How did I get so important that
my life can determine the foreign relations between
two governments? Anybody who knows anything
about New Jersey politics can be certain that her
motives are purely political. She, like Torrecelli and
several other opportunistic politicians in New Jersey
came to power, as part-time lobbyists for the Batistia
faction - soliciting votes from right wing Cubans.
They want to use my case as a barrier for normalizing
relations with Cuba, and as a pretext for maintaining
the immoral blockade against the Cuban people.
In what can only be called deliberate deception and
slander NBC aired a photograph of a woman with a
gun in her hand implying that the woman in the
photograph was me. I was not, in fact, the woman in
the photograph. The photograph was taken from a
highly publicized case where I was accused of bank
robbery. Not only did I voluntarily insist on
participating in a lineup, during which witnesses
selected another woman, but during the trial, several
witnesses, including the manager of the bank,
testified that the woman in that photograph was not
me. I was acquitted of that bank robbery. NBC aired
that photograph on at least 5 different occasions,
representing the woman in the photograph as me.
How is it possible, that the New Jersey State Police,
who claim to have a detective working full time on
my case, Governor of New Jersey Christine
Whitman, who claimed she reviewed all the
"evidence," or NBC, which has an extensive research
department, did not know that the photograph was
false?
It was a vile, fraudulent attempt to make me look guilty.
NBC deliberately misrepresented the truth. Even after
many people had called in, and there was massive fax, and
e-mail campaign protesting NBC's mutilation of the facts,
Ralph Penza and NBC continued to broadcast that
photograph, representing it as me. Not once have the New
Jersey State Police, Governor Christine Whitman, or NBC
come forth and stated that I was not the woman inthe
photograph, or that I had been acquitted of that charge.
Another major lie and distortion was that we had left
trooper Werner Foerster on the roadside to die. The truth is
that there was a major cover-up as to what happened on
May 2, 1973. Trooper Harper, the same man who shot me
with my arms raised in the air, testified that he returned to
the State Police Headquarters which was less than 200
yards away, "To seek aid." However, tape recordings and
police reports made on May 2, 1973 prove that not only
did Trooper Harper give several conflicting statements
about what happened on the turnpike, but he never once
mentioned the name of Werner Foerster, or the fact that the
incident took place right in front of the Trooper
Headquarters. In an effort to hide his tracks and cover his
guilt he said nothing whatsoever about Foerster to his
superiors or to his fellow officers.
In a clear attempt to discredit me, Col. Carl Williams of the
New Jersey State Police was allowed to give blow by blow
distortions of my interview. In my interview I stated that
on the night of May 2, 1973 I was shot with my arms in
the air, then shot again in the back. Williams stated "that is
absolutely false. Our records show that she reached in her
pocketbook, pulled out a nine millimeter weapon and
started firing." However, the claim that I reached into my
pocketbook and pulled out a gun, while inside the car was
even contested by trooper Harper. Although on three
official reports, and when he testified before the grand jury
he stated that he saw me take a gun out of my pocketbook,
he finally admitted under cross-examination that he never
saw me with my hands in a pocketbook, never saw me
with a weapon inside the car, and that he did not see me
shoot him.
The truth is that I was examined by 3 medical specialists:
(1) A Neurologist who testified that I was immediately
paralyzed immediately after the being shot. (2) A Surgeon
who testified that "It was absolutely anatomically necessary
that both arms be in the air for Mrs. Chesimard to receive
the wounds." The same surgeon also testified that the claim
by Trooper Harper that I had been crouching in a firing
position when I was shot was "totally anatomically
impossible." (3) A Pathologist who testified that "There is
no conceivable way that it [the bullet] could have traveled
over to hit the clavicle if her arm was down." he said "It
was impossible to have that trajectory" The prosecutors
presented no medical testimony whatsoever to refute the
above medical evidence.
No evidence whatsoever was ever presented that I had a
9-millimeter weapon, in fact New Jersey State Police
testified that the 9-millimeter weapon belonged to Zayd
Malik Shakur based on a holster fitting the weapon that
they was recovered from his body.
There were no fingerprints, or any other evidence
whatsoever that linked me to any guns or ammunition.
The results of the Neutron Activation test to determine
whether or not I had fired a weapon were negative.
Although Col. Williams refers to us as the "criminal
element" neither Zayd, or Sundiata Acoli or I were
criminals, we were political activists. I was a college
student until the police kicked down my door in an effort to
force me to "cooperate" with them and Sundiata Acoli was
a computer expert who had worked for NASA, before he
joined the Black Panther Party and was targeted by
COINTELPRO.
In an obvious maneuver to provoke sympathy for the
police, the NBC series juxtaposed my interview with the
weeping widow of Werner Foerster. While I can
sympathize with her grief, I believe that her appearance
was deliberately included to appeal to people's emotions,
to blur the facts, to make me look like a villain, and to
create the kind of lynch mob mentality that has historically
been associated with white women portrayed as victims of
black people. In essence the supposed interview with me
became a forum for the New State Police, Foerster's
widow, and the obviously hostile commentary of Ralph
Penza. The two initial programs together lasted 3.5
minutes - me - 59 seconds, the widow 50 seconds, the
state police 38 seconds, and Penza - 68 seconds. Not once
in the interview was I ever asked about Zayd, Sundiata or
their families. As the interview went on, it was painfully
evident that Ralph Penza would never see me as a human
being. Although I tried to talk about racism and about the
victims of government and police repression, it was clear
that he was totally uninterested.
I have stated publicly on various occasions that I was
ashamed of participating in my trial in New Jersey trial
because it was so racist, but I did testify. Even though I
was extremely limited by the judge, as to what I could
testfy about, I testified as clearly as I could about what
happened that night. After being almost fatally wounded I
managed to climb in the back seat of the car to get away
from the shooting. Sundiata drove the car five miles down
the road carried me into a grassy area because he was
afraid that the police would see the car parked on the side
of the road and just start shooting into it again. Yes, it was
five miles down the highway where I was captured,
dragged out of the car, stomped and then left on the
ground. Although I drifted in and out of consciousness I
remember clearly that both while I was lying on the
ground, and while I was in the ambulance, I kept hearing
the State troopers ask "is she dead yet?" Because of my
condition I have no independent recollection of how long I
was on the ground, or how long it was before the
ambulance was allowed to leave for the hospital, but in the
trial transcript trooper Harper stated that it was while he
was being questioned, some time after 2:00 am that a
detective told him that I had just been brought into the
hospital. I was the only live "suspect" in custody, and
prior to that time Harper, had never told anyone that a
woman had shot him.
As I watched Governor Whitman's interview the one thing
that struck me was her "outrage" at my joy about being a
grandmother, and my "quite nice life" as she put it here in
Cuba. While I love the Cuban people and the solidarity
they have shown me, the pain of being torn away from
everybody I love has been intense. I have never had the
opportunity to see or to hold my grandchild. If Gov.
Whitman thinks that my life has been so nice, that 50 years
of dealing with racism, poverty, persecution, brutality,
prison, underground, exile and blatant lies has been so
nice, then I'd be more than happy to let her walk in my
shoes for a while so she can get a taste of how it feels. I
am a proud black woman, and I'm not about to get on the
television and cry for Ralph Penza or any other Journalist,
but the way I have suffered in my lifetime, and the way my
people have suffered, only god can bear witness to.
Col. Williams of the New Jersey State Police stated "we
would do everything we could go get her off the island of
Cuba and if that includes kidnaping, we would do it." I
guess the theory is that if they could kidnap millions of
Africans from Africa 400 years ago, they should be able to
kidnap one African woman today. It is nothing but an
attempt to bring about the re-incarnation of the Fugitive
Slave Act. All I represent is just another slave that they
want to bring back to the plantation. Well, I might be a
slave, but I will go to my grave a rebellious slave. I am and
I feel like a maroon woman. I will never voluntarily accept
the condition of slavery, whether it's de-facto or ipso-
facto, official, or unofficial. In another recent interview,
Williams talked about asking the federal government to add
to the $50,000 reward for my capture. He also talked about
seeking "outside money, or something like that, a
benefactor, whatever." Now who is he looking to
"contribute" to that "cause"? The Ku Klux Klan, the Neo
Nazi Parties, the white militia organizations? But the plot
gets even thicker. He says that the money might lure
bounty hunters. "There are individuals out there, I guess
they call themselves 'soldiers of fortune' who might be
interested in doing something, in turning her over to us"
Well, in the old days they used to call them slave- catchers,
trackers, or patter-rollers, now they are called mercenaries.
Neither the governor nor the state police say one word
about "justice." They have no moral authority to do so.
The level of their moral and ethical bankruptcy is evident in
their eagerness to not only break the law and hire
hoodlums, all in the name of "law and order." But you
know what gets to me, what makes me truly indignant?
With the schools in Paterson, N.J. falling down, with
areas of Newark looking like a disaster area, with the crack
epidemic, with the wide-spread poverty and unemployment
in New Jersey, these depraved, decadent, would-be
slave-masters want federal funds to help put this "nigger
wench" back in her place. They call me the "most wanted
woman" in Amerika. I find that ironic. I've never felt very
"wanted" before. When it came to jobs, I was never the
"most wanted," when it came to "economic opportunities I
was never the "most wanted, when it came to decent
housing." It seems like the only time Black people are on
the "most wanted" list is when they want to put us in
prison.
But at this moment, I am not so concerned about myself.
Everybody has to die sometime, and all I want is to go
with dignity. I am more concerned about the growing
poverty, the growing despair that is rife in Amerika. I am
more concerned about our younger generations, who
represent our future. I am more concerned that one-third of
young black are either in prison or under the jurisdiction of
the "criminal in-justice system." I am more concerned
about the rise of the prison-industrial complex that is
turning our people into slaves again. I am more concerned
about the repression, the police brutality, violence, the
rising wave of racism that makes up the political landscape
of the U.S. today. Our young people deserve a future, and
I consider it the mandate of my ancestors to be part of the
struggle to insure that they have one. They have the right to
live free from political repression. The U.S. is becoming
more and more of a police state and that fact compels us to
fight against political repression. I urge you all, every
single person who reads this statement, to fight to free all
political prisoners. As the concentration camps in the U.S.
turn into death camps, I urge you to fight to abolish the
death penalty. I make a special, urgent appeal to you to
fight to save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the only
political prisoner who is currently on death row.
It has been a long time since I have lived inside the United
States. But during my lifetime I have seen every prominent
black leader, politician or activist come under attack by the
establishment media. When African -Americans appear on
news programs they are usually talking about sports,
entertainment or they are in handcuffs. When we have a
protest they ridicule it, minimized it, or cut the numbers of
the people who attended in half. The news is big business
and it is owned operated by affluent white men.
Unfortunately, they shape the way that many people see
the world, and even the way people see themselves. Too
often black journalists, and other journalists of color mimic
their white counterparts. They often gear their reports to
reflect the foreign policies and the domestic policies of the
same people who are oppressing their people. In the
establishment media, the bombing and of murder of
thousands of innocent women and children in Libya or Iraq
or Panama is seen as "patriotic," while those who fight for
freedom, no matter where they are, are seen as "radicals,"
"extremists," or "terrorists."
Like most poor and oppressed people in the United States,
I do not have a voice. Black people, poor people in the
U.S. have no real freedom of speech, no real freedom of
expression and very little freedom of the press. The black
press and the progressive media has historically played an
essential role in the struggle for social justice. We need to
continue and to expand that tradition. We need to create
media outlets that help to educate our people and our
children, and not annihilate their minds. I am only one
woman. I own no TV stations, or Radio Stations or
Newspapers. But I feel that people need to be educated as
to what is going on, and to understand the connection
between the news media and the instruments of repression
in Amerika. All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will
to tell the truth. But I sincerely ask, those of you in the
Black media, those of you in the progressive media, those
of you who believe in truth & freedom, To publish this
statement and to let people know what is happening. We
have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless.
Free all Political Prisoners, I send you Love and
Revolutionary Greetings From Cuba, One of the Largest,
Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon
Camps) That has ever existed on the Face of this Planet.
Assata Shakur
Havana, Cuba |
