Reflecting on Assata Shakur

Assata Shakur is the blueprint of what the power of a Black woman looks like. She refused to allow the never-ending misogyny of this world to keep her from living life and fighting in a world that looks down on our Black women. She escaped from prison and was able to die a free woman in Havana, Cuba, among people who knew protecting this queen was the mission the universe had for them. She was, and always will be, a revolutionary to spark the fire in those of us who are ready to walk in the footsteps she left behind.

"I am about life. I'm going to live as hard as I can and as full as I can until I die, and I'm not letting these parasites, these oppressors,
these greedy racist swine, make me kill my children in my mind before they are even born." 

Her words are so bold and powerful, and needed right now, given how society talks about our children, their future, and even our lives, as if they have no meaning. It is up to us to let our children know that we write our stories without the edits of others. We can’t allow them to write our stories without our voices, and she is the example that no matter what, you fight for your people, your future, your legacy, because we do it all for our future generations. 

She is now the ancestor I aspire to be when I pass on, knowing that when people speak my name, 
there is power and inspiration behind it.  She will truly be missed. 
 
~ Klay

“Capitalism meant that rich businessmen owned the wealth, while socialism meant that the people who made the wealth owned it." 

Assata came to that understanding through lived experience. As a young girl moving from segregated North Carolina to New York, she was promised a “better” education—only to face daily humiliation from white teachers who refused to see her. She wrote about one formative moment at P.S. 154 in Queens, when her teacher called her to the chalkboard to write the letter “L”.

“I wrote my pitiful little second grade L on the blackboard. After looking at me and nodding, she made a big, fancy L next to mine. ‘Is this what you’re trying to make, JoAnne?’ Her expression was smug and the whole class broke out laughing. I wanted to go somewhere and hide… After that, it seemed that every time I mentioned something I had learned down South she got mad. She never saw my raised hand.”

This was Northern “integration”: the same racist hierarchy in a new geography. As Assata reflected: “I’m not saying that segregation was a good system… But Black children encountered support and understanding and encouragement instead of the hostile indifference they often met in the ‘integrated’ schools.” Assata’s life reminds us that the fight for just schools is inseparable from the fight against the economic systems that exploit Black labor and suppress Black potential. Her passing is a profound loss, but her lessons—about dignity, truth, and collective struggle —remain a guiding force for our work.

May she rest in power, and may we honor her by continuing the fight she helped define. 
​
~ Jesse