{"id":35621,"date":"2025-10-04T11:30:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T18:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redphoenixnews.com\/?p=35621"},"modified":"2026-04-23T23:35:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:35:40","slug":"goodbye-assata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2025\/10\/goodbye-assata\/","title":{"rendered":"Adi\u00f3s, Assata"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maurice B. | Corresponsal de Red Phoenix | Nueva York\u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Assata Shakur in Cuba in 1998. (SHOBHA\/Contrasto\/Redux)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

“My life wasn’t beautiful and creative before I became politically active. My life was totally changed when I began to struggle.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, September 25, 2025, at the age of 78, Assata Shakur, born as JoAnne Deborah Byron, died in Havana, Cuba. Shakur\u2018s life was synonymous with struggle against oppression; she dedicated her time, her words, and her energy to building toward socialist revolution and the defeat of US imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1960s and 1970s, Assata Shakur was a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, finding herself at the very forefront of the American class struggle, often culminating in openly violent confrontations with the police and other forces of capitalist state repression. For the Black and African-descendant working-class people in the United States, Shakur stands tall amongst figures like Harriet Tubman and fellow Panthers like Angela Davis as exemplary revolutionary women in the Black Radical Tradition<\/a>. Shakur carried forward the struggle for those of us fighting today for a more just society, and we owe her a great deal for the successes that we\u2019ve experienced in our lifetimes as well as for the practical lessons she provided us alongside her BPP and BLA comrades with their work for the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assata Shakur spent the last 41 years of her life in political asylum, and the last 12 of those years as the first woman to be added to the FBI\u2019s Most Wanted List. Like so many of her Panther comrades and other fellow revolutionaries, Shakur was targeted for her political organizing and for the living example she provided to the Black youth and working class in America as a militant communist. For the fear of a \u201cBlack Messiah,\u201d Shakur was threatened with life imprisonment, torture, and death. For the fear of a revolutionary and militant working class with hundreds of thousands of Assata Shakurs and Angela Davises and Kathleen Cleavers and Akua Njeris, Shakur\u2019s extradition became a ceaseless demand of the capitalists and imperialists. In their tireless and ultimately fruitless efforts to \u201cmake an example\u201d of Assata Shakur, they have only multiplied her adoration among the working class and raised the class consciousness of her Black brothers and sisters to see their true enemy: capitalist imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assata Shakur has died, but her legacy only grows and will continue to do so in the eyes of the international working class and of African-descendant peoples in all nations. Wherever people are struggling against capitalism, racism, chauvinism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, Assata Shakur will be in their hearts and in their minds. Shakur showed us all what is asked of a revolutionary and what sacrifices we must be prepared to make to emancipate ourselves from the yoke of fascism, imperialist war, and reaction. Assata Shakur, through 78 years of life, through a life of loss, of struggle, and of revolution, showed the world the value of the revolutionary struggle and that true immortality belongs to those who give their flesh and bone to the people. \u201cGlory goes to the ones not asking for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Statement from Camilo Lazo, National Chair of the American Party of Labor–<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a chilly evening, as nights in Cuba tend to be.\u00a0You came, quite unannounced, to the Albergue Jose-Antonia Mella, to speak with members of that year\u2019s Venceremos Brigade.\u00a0There was no fanfare, no grand entrance, no banners waving or chants blaring out. Just a seasoned, experienced comrade coming to share thoughts and experiences, and offer advice and support, to young revolutionaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, we met.\u00a0You were gracious and kind.\u00a0I\u2019ll admit that I was \u2018star-struck.\u2019\u00a0I hope I didn\u2019t show it, though I probably did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goodbye, Assata.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You were a legend and an inspiration to millions.\u00a0I\u2019m sure many are saying that now.\u00a0But I wanted to say it myself. Just once. From me to you.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maurice B. | Red Phoenix correspondent | New York– “My life wasn’t beautiful and creative before I became politically active. My life was totally changed..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":40156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news","category-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/10-05-25_assata-1.webp?fit=1024%2C682&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40157,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35621\/revisions\/40157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}