(Common)
In the Spirit of God. In the Spirit of the Ancestors. In the Spirit of the Black Panthers. In the Spirit of Assata Shakur. We make this movement towards freedom for all those who have been oppressed, and all those in the struggle.
Yeah. yo, check it-
There were lights and sirens, gunshots firin
Cover your eyes as I describe a scene so violent
Seemed like a bad dream, she laid in a blood puddle
Blood bubbled in her chest, cold air brushed against open flesh
No room to rest, pain consumed each breath
Shot twice wit her hands up
Police questioned but shot before she answered
One Panther lost his life, the other ran for his
Scandalous the police were as they kicked and beat her
Comprehension she was beyond, tryna hold on
to life. She thought she’d live with no arm
that’s what it felt like, got to the hospital, eyes held tight
They moved her room to room-she could tell by the light
Handcuffed tight to the bed, through her skin it bit
Put guns to her head, every word she got hit
“Who shot the trooper?” they asked her
Put mace in her eyes, threatened to blast her
Her mind raced till things got still
Opened her eyes, realized she’s next to her best friend who got killed
She got chills, they told her: that’s where she would be next
Hurt mixed wit anger-survival was a reflex
They lied and denied visits from her lawyer
But she was buildin as they tried to destroy her
If it wasn’t for this German nurse they woulda served her worse
I read this sister’s story, knew that it deserved a verse
I wonder what would happen if that woulda been me?
All this shit so we could be free, so dig it, y’all.
(Cee-lo vocals)
I’m thinkin’ of Assata, yes.
Listen to my Love, Assata, yes.
Your Power and Pride is beautiful.
May God bless your Soul.
(Common)
It seemed like the middle of the night when the law awakened her
Walkie-talkies cracklin, I see ’em when they takin her
Though she kinda knew,
What made the ride peaceful was the trees and the sky was blue
Arrived to Middlesex Prison about six inna morning
Uneasy as they pushed her to the second floor in
a cell, one cot, no window, facing hell.
Put in the basement of a prison wit all males
And the smell of misery, seatless toilets and centipedes
She’d exercise, (paint?,) and begin to read
Two years inna hole. Her soul grew weak
Away from people so long she forgot how to speak
She discovered freedom is a unspoken sound
And a wall is a wall and can be broken down
Found peace in the Panthers she went on trial with
One of the brothers she had a child with
The foulness they would feed her, hopin she’s lose her seed
Held tight, knowing the fight would live through this seed
In need of a doctor, from her stomach she’s bleed
Out of this situation a girl was conceived
Separated from her, left to mother the Revolution
And lactated to attack hate
Cause federal and state was built for a Black fate
Her emptiness was filled with beatings and court dates
They fabricated cases, hoping one would stick
And said she robbed places that didn’t exist
In the midst of threats on her life and being caged with Aryan whites
Through dark halls of hate she carried the light
I wonder what would happen if that woulda been me?
All of this shit so we could be free.
Yeah, I often wonder what would happen if that woulda been me?
All of this shit so we could be free, so dig it, people-
(Cee-Lo)
I’m thinkin’ of Assata, yeah.
Listen to my Love, Assata, yeah.
Your Power and Pride, so Beautiful…
May God bless your Soul.
Oooh.
(Common)
Yo
From North Carolina her grandmother would bring
news that she had had a dream
Her dreams always meant what they needed them to mean
What made them real was the action in between
She dreamt that Assata was free in they old house in Queens
The fact that they always came true was the thing
Assata had been convicted of a murder she couldna done
Medical evidence shown she couldna shot the gun
It’s time for her to see the sun from the other side
Time for her daughter to be by her mother’s side
Time for this Beautiful Woman to become soft again
Time for her to breathe, and not be told how or when
She untangled the chains and escaped the pain
How she broke out of prison I could never explain
And even to this day they try to get to her
but she’s free with political asylum in Cuba.
(Cee-Lo vocals)
I’m thinkin’ of Assata, yeah.
Listen to my Love, Assata, yeah.
We’re molded from the same mud, Assata.
We share the same Blood, Assata, yeah.
Your Power and Pride, so Beautiful…
May God bless your Soul.
Your Power and Pride, so Beautiful…
May God bless your Soul.
Oooh.
(Assata)
Freedom! You askin’ me about freedom. Askin’ me about freedom? I’ll be honest with you. I know a whole lot more about what freedom isn’t than about what it is, cause I’ve never been free. I can only share my vision with you of the future, about what freedom is. Uhh, the way I see it, freedom is — is the right to grow, is the right to blossom. Freedom is — is the right to be yourself, to be who you are, to be who you wanna be, to do what you wanna do. (fade out)
– “A Song For Assata”, by Common featuring Cee-Lo
from the album Like Water For Chocolate (2000)
Songwriters: Lonnie Rashid Lynn, James Jason Poyser, Thomas Decarlo Burton
The Pan Afrikan community lost a mighty voice for freedom on September 25, 2025 with the passing to the Honored Ancestors of Assata Olubgbala Shakur. A veteran of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA), wounded in a May 2, 1973 shootout on Interstate 95 that also took the lives of fellow BLA member Zayd Shakur and New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster, tried and convicted of murder despite physical evidence and medical testimony that she was not holding a weapon and was shot in the back with her hands raised, tortured in the hospital as she recovered from her injuries, imprisoned in an all-male US gulag until her liberation and escape in 1979, aided by other BLA members and White revolutionaries, and finally settling in Cuba under the protection of the Fidel Castro government, she finally passed on to the ancestors at age 78, living the life of a free Black woman in exile from the United States with her daughter.
Black nationalist and Pan Afrikan organizations, as well as mainstream organizations such as the Chicago Teachers Union, have mourned the passing and memorialized the life of Ancestor Assata Shakur, while corporate news outlets and government officials have largely condemned her for her life as a Black militant and revolutionary, continuing to mouth the words of those who are still convinced that she was a cold-blooded cop killer, despite the physical evidence in her case. The fact is, there are those who continue to benefit from the spoils of repression that rocked the United States in the 1960s and 1970s and who refuse to even consider the copious evidence that activists such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier and Assata Shakur were not the murderous terrorists that the FBI and its COINTELPRO had painted them to be, and were in fact freedom fighters trying desperately to stem the tide of totalitarianism, repression and violence that the country was swept up in during the Nixon administration and seems to be revisiting during the current “reign” of Donald Trump.
I am hardly qualified to speak about the immeasurable courage, dedication and sacrifice that she embodied. My words would so inadequately describe the life and legacy of New Ancestor Assata Shakur. So I will leave this task to others, from the lyrics of a tribute song by recording artist/actor Common (above) to news articles to tributes on several youth-oriented and pro-Black Web sites to a couple of quotes from Assata herself.
“I decided on Assata Olugbala Shakur. Assata means ‘She who struggles,’ Olugbala means ‘Love for the people,’ and i took the name Shakur out of respect for Zayd and Zayd’s family. Shakur means ‘the thankful’.” [Assata: An Autobiography, p. 186]
“There was not a single liberation movement in Africa that was not fighting for socialism. In fact, there was not a single liberation movement in the whole world that was fighting for capitalism. The whole thing boiled down to a simple equation: anything that has any kind of value is made, mined, grown, produced, and processed by working people. So why shouldn’t working people collectively own that wealth? Why shouldn’t working people own and control their own resources? Capitalism meant that rich businessmen owned the wealth, while socialism meant that the people who made the wealth owned it” [Assata: An autobiography, p. 190].
“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.”
We share here links to several Web sites that have published short biographies and tributes to her, including an article about the reaction of US FBI Director Kash Patel’s remarks and the “Black backlash” that erupted in response to his disrespectful words. We start with the news article from the Associated Press.
Associated Press
Assata Shakur, a fugitive Black militant sought by the US since 1979, dies in Cuba
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/assata-shakur-a-fugitive-black-militant-sought-by-the-us-since-1979-dies-in-cuba/ar-AA1NnikR?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Teen Vogue
Assata Shakur was a Black Revolutionary who Fought for Freedom Even in Exile
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/assata-shakur-black-revolutionary-fought-190818481.html
Marion Jones, October 1, 2025
In a letter written from prison titled To My People (1973), Shakur writes, “I am a Black revolutionary, and, as such, i” — Shakur preferred the lowercase “i” as personal pronoun, aiming to remove “the egotistical connotation of the word” — “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.”
The dissonance in Shakur’s legacy is on display after her death. She was long framed as a “terrorist”, “cop killer”, and fugitive from the law in media and by officials. Yet, public displays of mourning and calls to honor her legacy abound. Her story is also a reminder of the impact of COINTELPRO, and how it continues to impact activists today through technological surveillance, the criminalization of protest, and the targeting of dissidents.
To many, including those posting in honor of her after her death, Shakur will be remembered as a revolutionary who fought for her freedom and won. That legacy lives on in the “Assata chant” often utilized at protests — “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.”
The Root, https://www.theroot.com
Assata Shakur and Other Black Celebs We Lost In 2025
https://www.theroot.com/black-celebs-we-lost-in-2025-1851759544/slides/2
Activist Assata Shakur, Black Panther Party member and noted revolutionary, died in Cuba on Sept. 26. She was 78. Shakur moved to the Caribbean country in 1984, five years following her escape from a New Jersey prison, where she was serving a life sentence for the murder of a police officer; Fidel Castro granted Shakur (born Joanne Chesimard) political asylum, turning her into a symbol of strained relations between the country. For her supporters, Shakur spent nearly half a century as an icon of Black American freedom fighters and an example of the consequences of an imbalanced and biased criminal justice system.
Black Internet Drags FBI Director Kash Patel For Filth For Slamming Assata Shakur Following Her Death
FBI Director Kash Patel called Assata Shakur a “terrorist” after her death, and Black folks online have interesting thoughts on the matter.
By Phenix S Halley, Published September 30, 2025
https://www.theroot.com/black-internet-drags-fbi-director-kash-patel-for-filth-2000064719
While the Black community was honoring the life of Assata Shakur, former Black Panther and member of the Black Liberation Army, FBI Director Kash Patel went out of his way to slam anyone remembering her positively. Now, Black Twitter is dragging him for filth.
Liberation News, https://liberationnews.org
Assata Shakur: The making of a revolutionary woman
Rachel Domond, September 26, 2025
https://liberationnews.org/assata-shakur-the-making-of-a-revolutionary-woman/
Assata Shakur, much loved fighter for the people, died Sept. 25 in Cuba. To commemorate her life, we reprint this 2021 article from Liberation School-ed.
When I think of political prisoners, and when I think of those who have relentlessly committed themselves to Black Liberation, I always think of Assata Shakur. …
From Assata’s story, we are able to learn what it means to be motivated by a deep love for the people and the struggle for freedom—and what it means to embody a determined and unbreakable spirit in the face of crackdowns and government repression designed to stifle and destroy the movement. Account after account from Assata’s comrades and fellow revolutionaries describe Assata as a light, a positive spirit who remained disciplined and committed to the struggle despite incredible hardships. …
Coming of age in the 1960s and 70s, conditions were ripe with struggle on all fronts—from the Stonewall Rebellion to the Women’s Rights Movement to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements—conditions to politicize. After college, Assata moved to Oakland, CA, where she joined the Black Panther Party, participating in defense programs for the Black community. Some years later, she returned to NYC to lead the BPP in Harlem, coordinating programs like the famous Free Breakfast for Children program. …
COINTELPRO, the government counterintelligence program of the 60s and beyond, was created with the intention to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize” Black nationalist and Black liberation organizations and their leaders [4]. It is now absolutely clear from FBI documents that since at least 1971, the FBI, in cooperation with the state and local law enforcement, conducted a campaign to specifically criminalize, defame, harass and intimidate Assata Shakur. The U.S. government saw Assata’s dedication to the cause and leadership within the Black sovereignty movement as a threat to the internal security of the United States. …
Rest In Power, Mama Assata. We are sad to see you go, but we are glad that you were able to love out your life away from these “United Snakes”, and that you now reside with the Honored Ancestors for your unending struggle for the people, unconquered still.
