She has a powerful way with words and there are poems interspersed with the chapters. Some of the things she went through are horrifying. Weaving together stories of her childhood, arrest, court cases, and how she developed her political consciousness with her incisive and wide-ranging thoughts on the US "justice" system, police, COINTELPRO, the Black Panthers, education, family, Black Power, international anti-colonial struggles, and women. Read moreįascinating raw and insightful autobio, worthy of being up there with that of Malcolm X. She was given political asylum by Cuba, where she now resides. Two years after her conviction, Assata Shakur escaped from prison. The result is a signal contribution to the literature about growing up Black in America that has already taken its place alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the works of Maya Angelou. With wit and candor, Assata Shakur recounts the experiences that led her to a life of activism and portrays the strengths, weaknesses, and eventual demise of Black and White revolutionary groups at the hand of government officials. This intensely personal and political autobiography belies the fearsome image of JoAnne Chesimard long projected by the media and the state. Edgar Hoover's campaign to defame, infiltrate, and criminalize Black nationalist organizations and their leaders, Shakur was incarcerated for four years prior to her conviction on flimsy evidence in 1977 as an accomplice to murder. On May 2, 1973, Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard) lay in a hospital, close to death, handcuffed to her bed, while local, state, and federal police attempted to question her about the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that had claimed the life of a white state trooper.
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