Women in Prison: How It Is With Us
Assata Shakur
:)
Assata Shakur :)
Assata Olugbala Shakur is a political activist, author, and ex-political prisoner, well-known for her highly publicized alleged crimes, arrest, prison-break, and eventual escape to Cuba in 1984. She was born in 1947 in New York City as JoAnne Deborah Byron and was exposed to Black radical thought during college which was the start of her activism. She began participating in the student movement, anti Vietnam war activism and the struggle for Black liberation, and in 1970, while visiting Oakland, California, Shakur joined the Black Panther Party where she worked with the breakfast program. Growing frustrated with the BPP’s unwillingness to work with other Black radical organizations, Shakur left the party in 1971 and joined the Black Liberation Army, an underground paramilitary group whose goal was to “take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States.” In Assata, Shakur’s autobiography, she wrote, “the Black Liberation Army was not a centralized, organized group with a common leadership and chain of command. Instead there were various organizations and collectives working together and simultaneously independent of each other.”
In 1972, the FBI issued a warrant for Shakur’s arrest for alleged crimes committed by the BLA and was the subject of a multi-state manhunt by law-enforcement. During a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973, Sundiata Acoli, Zayd Malik Shakur, and Assata Shakur got into an altercation with two police officers. The incident resulted in the deaths of Zayd and one of the police officers. Over the next few years, beteen 1973 and 1977, Shakur was charged with a variety of crimes related to the 1973 incident and others, including murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery and kidnapping. Six of the charged were ultimately dismissed, though she was convicted of the one officer’s murder and seven other felonies related to that incident in 1977 and sentenced to life in prison plus thirty years in what was most certainly an unfair trial. On November 2nd, 1979, three members of the BLA helped Shakur escape from prison. For the next few years, Shakur lived underground, ultimately fleeing the U.S. for Cuba in 1984, where she was reunited with her daughter, who had been born in prison while she was on trial. Shakur continues to live in Cuba and remains on the FBI’s list of “most wanted terrorists” which, not coincidentally, contains no Nazis or fascists, but only Muslim people and Black people… and the few white people included, are far-left radicals.
Our main reading material, which was written from Rikers Island where Shakur was imprisoned in solitary confinement for 21 months, she poetically details the harsh realities of imprisoned women and how carceral systems fail everyone who enters it. Having herself given birth while in prison, she goes on to explain every aspect of an imprisoned woman’s life - from their lives before imprisonement, to day-to-day interactions while incarcerated, to post-release life. She goes on to also make a comparison that for some (namely Black, working-class women), life spent in a cage by force is no different than regular life. Assata writes:
“For many the cells are not much different from the tenements, the shooting galleries and the welfare hotels they live in on the street. Sick call is no different from the clinic or the hospital emergency room. The fights are the same except they are less dangerous. The police are the same. The poverty is the same. The alienation is the same. The racism is the same. The sexism is the same. The drugs are the same and the system is the same. Riker’s and is just another institution. In childhood school was their prison, or youth houses or reform schools or children shelters or foster homes or mental hospitals or drug programs and they see all institutions as indifferent to their needs, yet necessary to their survival.”
Though longer than our usual reads, this article is written very straightforwardly and describes in plain detail the pitfalls of being a Black woman subjected to the racist institutions of the United States and how the liberation of everyone is predicated on the liberation of Black women!
But wait there’s more…
Opening statement read by Assata at her trial - Keep in mind, this was read to an all-white jury. It’s an incredibly detailed account of how government institutions police and suppress Black people in America systemically. Shakur’s words echoed the laments of Black people across America while touching on topics like the policing of Black lives, political persecution, propaganda around Black radicalism, Black working-class living conditions, and the heroin pandemic.
“Leftovers - What is Left?” Poem by Assata Shakur - A moving poem touching on every aspect of what it means to be a Black radical fighting for liberation; what it means to be a Black person in America constantly facing persecution. This PDF is a scan from a guerrilla publication from way back when that I can’t source, but this poem was also included in Assata’s autobiography linked above.
“The Eyes of the Rainbow” documentary - Directed by the Cuban film maker Gloria Rolando, this 40-minute documentary is a detailed account by Assata on her experience as a political prisoner in America nearly 18 years after her exile. She explains what she experienced while imprisoned, her escape, and her eventual asylum in Cuba.
Sources:
“Women in Prison: How It Is With Us” Transcribed Document– Courtesy of the History is a Weapon project who hosts this article and a vast number of other revolutionary and counter-hegemonic live-text pieces. No blog publish date shown.
https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/shakurwip.html
“Women in Prison: How It Is With Us” Article Scan PDF – Shout out to Freedom Archives for their wealth of resources on all revolutionary topics.
http://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC513_scans/Assata_Shakur/513.Assata.OpeningStatement.pdf
“What is Left?” Poem - Also sourced from Freedom Archives but I can’t find information on where and when this was originally published. Will keep digging to see what I can find out!
http://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC513_scans/Assata_Shakur/513.Assata.poem.What.is.Left.pdf
“Eyes of the Rainbow” documentary - Huge thanks to Youtube Channel thepostarchive who hosts so so so many vintage political videos ranging from speaker panels, speech recordings, and other clandestine-ish media on revolutionary topics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jItg69Hnq8