The Equity Report #2: Rest in Power, Assata Shakur

“I believe in living. I believe in the power of the people.” — Assata Shakur (1987)

This essay, Rest in Power, Assata Shakur, examines the political and intellectual legacy of Assata Shakur (1947–2025), whose life epitomized the convergence of scholarship, struggle, and sacrifice within Black liberation movements. Situating Shakur within the historical emergence of Black Studies, the essay traces her evolution from student activist at Howard University to member of the Black Liberation Army, emphasizing how her lived experience embodied the praxis of revolutionary knowledge. It interrogates the state repression that criminalized her activism, culminating in her 1977 conviction and 1979 prison escape—an act that redefined the parameters of resistance and exile. Shakur’s decades of asylum in Cuba are analyzed as both a political sanctuary and a site of transnational solidarity that linked African-diasporic and Third World liberation struggles. Through her seminal text Assata: An Autobiography (1987), she articulated a pedagogy of survival that continues to inform abolitionist education, feminist thought, and racial-justice movements. Her death in 2025 while still listed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists roster underscores the enduring fear of radical Black womanhood in the U.S. national imagination. Ultimately, the essay contends that Shakur’s life and legacy demand a redefinition of freedom—not as peace, but as perpetual vigilance, memory, and collective transformation.

— Telisa Nyoka King, M.A.