Assata Shakur, a Black liberation activist who was given political asylum in Cuba after her 1979 escape from a U.S. prison where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a police officer, has died, her daughter and the Cuban government said.<\/p>\n
Shakur, who was born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, died Thursday in the capital city of Havana due to \u201chealth conditions and advanced age,\u201d Cuba\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement<\/a>. Shakur\u2019s daughter, Kakuya Shakur, confirmed her mother\u2019s death in a Facebook post.<\/p>\n A member of Black Panther Party<\/a> and Black Liberation Army, Shakur had long been emblematic of the fraught relations between the U.S. and Cuba. American authorities, including President Donald Trump during his first term<\/a>, had demanded her return from the communist nation for decades.<\/p>\n The FBI put Shakur on its list of \u201c most wanted terrorists<\/a>,\u201d but, in her telling \u2014 and in the minds of her supporters \u2014 she was pursued for crimes she didn\u2019t commit or that were justified.<\/p>\n From police shootout to prison break<\/p>\n Shakur and two others were involved in a gunfight with New Jersey State Police troopers following a highway traffic stop on May 2, 1973. <\/p>\n Trooper Werner Foerster was killed and another officer was wounded, while one of Shakur\u2019s companions was also killed. <\/p>\n Shakur, who was at the time wanted on several felonies, including bank robbery, fled but was eventually apprehended.<\/p>\n The New York City native was found guilty in 1977 of murder, armed robbery and other crimes and was sentenced to life in prison, only to escape in November 1979.<\/p>\n Members of the Black Liberation Army, posing as visitors, stormed the Clinton Correctional Facility for women, took two guards hostage and commandeered a prison van to break Shakur out.<\/p>\n She disappeared before eventually emerging in 1984 in Cuba, where Fidel Castro granted her asylum, according to the FBI.<\/p>\n A symbol of U.S.-Cuba tensions<\/p>\n Offering Shakur asylum was one of the most famous examples of Cuba aligning itself with what it describes as revolutionary forces struggling against the oppressive capitalist empire to the north. <\/p>\n Much like Cuba supported anti-colonial and left-wing forces in Africa, Central and South America, the Cuban government saw the armed Black liberation movement in the U.S. as part of a global revolutionary struggle.<\/p>\n New Jersey State Assemblyman Michael Inganamort, who sponsored legislation last year calling on Cuba to extradite Shakur, lamented Friday that \u201cjustice was never served in the senseless murder of Trooper Foerster.\u201d<\/p>\n Shakur maintained in her writings over the years<\/a> that she didn\u2019t shoot anyone and had her hands in the air when she was wounded during the gunfire.<\/p>\n In more recent years, her writings became a rallying cry during the Black Lives Matter<\/a> movement, even as opponents criticized her words as being influenced by Marxist and communist ideology.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win,\u201d Shakur wrote in \u201cAssata: An Autobiography,\u201d originally published in 1988. \u201cWe must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.\u201d<\/p>\n Black Lives Matter Grassroots Inc., a collective of racial justice activists from around the U.S., paid tribute to Shakur on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cMay her courage, wisdom, and deep, abiding love permeate through every dimension and guide us,\u201d the group said in a statement posted to Instagram. \u201cMay our work be righteous and brave as we fight in her honor and memory.\u201d<\/p>\n Hip-hop legacy<\/p>\n Shakur\u2019s influence extended into the music world. She was famously close to the family of late rapper Tupac Shakur, who had considered her a godmother.<\/p>\n Public Enemy, the political hip-hop group<\/a> and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, are thought to be the first major artists to reference Shakur. The 1988 song \u201cRebel Without a Pause,\u201d from the album It Takes A Nation, includes the lyrics \u201csupporter of Chesimard,\u201d referring to her legal name.<\/p>\n Grammy award-winning rapper Common tells Shakur\u2019s story in his 2000 song \u201cA Song for Assata.\u201d In 2011, Common\u2019s invitation to a White House poetry event during the Obama administration drew outrage from conservatives and law enforcement groups who felt it was disrespectful to Foerster\u2019s family and police officers broadly.<\/p>\n A companion who was also convicted in Foerster\u2019s killing, Sundiata Acoli, was granted parole<\/a> in 2022. His attorneys had argued the then-octogenarian had been a model prisoner for nearly three decades and counseled other inmates.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Associated Press writers Aaron Morrison and Michael Weissenstein in New York contributed to this story.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n