Assata Shakur, US Black liberation activist exiled in Cuba, dies at 78

After decades in exile, Assata Shakur, a Black American liberation activist who was granted political asylum in Cuba, passed away at the age of 78, according to her family and Cuban officials.

The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Friday that Shakur, who was born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, had advanced age and health problems.

Kakuya Shakur, her daughter, also provided a Facebook post about her passing. She wrote, “Words cannot describe the depth of loss I am feeling right now.”

The former Black Liberation Army (BLA) member, who was a hero of many activists, escaped a US prison in 1979 after serving a life sentence for the killing of a police officer.

Four years after a shootout between BLA members and two state police officers who had stopped them for a traffic violation in New Jersey, Shakur was found guilty in 1977 of first-degree murder. Shakur always disputed her innocence, claiming that the incident occurred while she was hunched in the air.

According to the FBI, which later placed Shakur on its “most wanted terrorist” list and offered a $2 million reward for her capture, one of the police officers, Werner Foerster, was killed “execution-style” at point-blank range while his colleague was hurt.

Shakur was on the lookout for a number of crimes, including bank robbery, according to the statement.

One of Shakur’s fellow BLA members passed away in the incident, while Sundiata Acoli, a third BLA member, served almost 50 years in prison before receiving parole in 2022.

“Due to fight for freedom.”

The BLA, a Marxist-Leninist organization that split from the Black Panther Party, invited Shakur’s female prisoners and forced them to leave the Clinton Correctional Facility.

She vanished in 1984 and was reunited with her family in Cuba, where Fidel Castro granted her asylum.

Later, Shakur’s artwork became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. Some people, however, criticized her for incorporating Marxist and communist ideology.

“We have a duty to fight for our freedom,” he said. In her 1988 autobiography, Shakur wrote, “It is our duty to win.” We must support and love one another, according to nbsp. Our chains are everything, not ours.

A group of American racial justice activists called her name in a statement on Instagram after her death was revealed. As we fight in her memory and honor, “may our work be righteous and brave.”

The already tense relationship between the US and Cuba was strained by the case of Shakur, who was close to the late rapper Tupac Shakur’s family.