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SHAKUR"


 http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2004/06/27287.php

ASSATA SHAKUR

http://www.assatashakur.org/index.htm

    On May 2 1973, Black Panther activist Assata Shakur (fsn) JoAnne
    Chesimard, was pulled over by the New Jersey State Police, shot
    twice and then charged with murder of a police officer. Assata spent
    six and a half years in prison under brutal circumstances before
    escaping out of the maximum security wing of the Clinton
    Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey in 1979 and moving to
    Cuba.

    http://www.assatashakur.org/index.htm

ASSATA SHAKUR
by
Assata Shakur

On May 2 1973, Black Panther activist Assata Shakur (fsn) JoAnne 
Chesimard, was pulled over by the New Jersey State Police, shot twice 
and then charged with murder of a police officer. Assata spent six and a 
half years in prison under brutal circumstances before escaping out of 
the maximum security wing of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women 
in New Jersey in 1979 and moving to Cuba.


Table Of Contents

Introduction Distortions And Lies The Tradition
The Interview Assata Poster Sekou Odinga Sundiata Acoli Marilyn Buck 
Silva Baraldini
The Prison Industrial Complex
Assata Speaks (audio) Message To My Sistas
Remembering A Revolutionary
Closing Remarks Assata's Forums

Introduction

My name is Assata ("she who struggles") Shakur ("the thankful one"), and 
I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I 
was left with no other choice than to flee from the political 
repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government's policy 
towards people of color. I am an ex political prisoner, and I have been 
living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist 
most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in 
its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been 
one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black 
liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to 
end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the 
Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by 
the FBI's COINTELPRO program. because the Black Panther Party demanded 
the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it 
"greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and vowed to 
destroy it and its leaders and activists.

In 1978, my case was one of many cases bought before the United Nations 
Organization in a petition filed by the National Conference of Black 
Lawyers, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, 
and the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, exposing 
the existence of political prisoners in the United States, their 
political persecution, and the cruel and inhuman treatment they receive 
in US prisons. I was falsely accused in six different "criminal cases" 
and in all six of these cases I was eventually acquitted or the charges 
were dismissed. The fact that I was acquitted or that the charges were 
dismissed, did not mean that I received justice in the courts, that was 
certainly not the case. It only meant that the "evidence" presented 
against me was so flimsy and false that my innocence became evident. 
This political persecution was part and parcel of the government's 
policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes 
and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges.

On May 2, 1973 I, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were 
stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly for a "faulty tail 
light." Sundiata Acoli got out of the car to determine why we were 
stopped. Zayd and I remained in the car. State trooper Harper then came 
to the car, opened the door and began to question us. Because we were 
black, and riding in a car with Vermont license plates, he claimed he 
became "suspicious." He then drew his gun, pointed it at us, and told us 
to put our hands up in the air, in front of us, where he could see them. 
I complied and in a split second, there was a sound that came from 
outside the car, there was a sudden movement, and I was shot once with 
my arms held up in the air, and then once again from the back. Zayd 
Malik Shakur was later killed, trooper Werner Forester was killed, and 
even though trooper Harper admitted that he shot and killed Zayd Malik 
Shakur, under the New Jersey felony murder law, I was charged with 
killing both Zayd Malik Shakur, who was my closest friend and comrade, 
and charged in the death of trooper Forester. Never in my life have I 
felt such grief. Zayd had vowed to protect me, and to help me to get to 
a safe place, and it was clear that he had lost his life, trying to 
protect both me and Sundiata. Although he was also unarmed, and the gun 
that killed trooper Forester was found under Zayd's leg, Sundiata Acoli, 
who was captured later, was also charged with both deaths. Neither 
Sundiata Acoli nor I ever received a fair trial. We were both convicted 
in the news media way before our trials. No news media was ever 
permitted to interview us, although the New Jersey police and the FBI 
fed stories to the press on a daily basis. In 1977, I was convicted by 
an all- white jury and sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison. In 
1979, fearing that I would be murdered in prison, and knowing that I 
would never receive any justice, I was liberated from prison, aided by 
committed comrades who understood the depths of the injustices in my 
case, and who were also extremely fearful for my life.

The U.S. Senate's 1976 Church Commission report on intelligence 
operations inside the USA, revealed that "The FBI has attempted covertly 
to influence the publics perception of persons and organizations by 
disseminating derogatory information to the press, either anonymously or 
through "friendly" news contacts." This same policy is evidently still 
very much in effect today. On December 24, 1997, The New Jersey State 
called a press conference to announce that New Jersey State Police had 
written a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to intervene on their 
behalf and to aid in having me extradited back to New Jersey prisons. 
The New Jersey State Police refused to make their letter public. Knowing 
that they had probably totally distort the facts, and attempted to get 
the Pope to do the devils work in the name of religion, I decided to 
write the Pope to inform him about the reality of' "justice" for black 
people in the State of New Jersey and in the United States.

In January of 1998, during the pope's visit to Cuba, I agreed to do an 
interview with NBC journalist Ralph Penza around my letter to the Pope, 
about my experiences in New Jersey court system, and about the changes I 
saw in the United States and it's treatment of Black people in the last 
25 years. I agreed to do this interview because I saw this secret letter 
to the Pope as a vicious, vulgar, publicity maneuver on the part of the 
New Jersey State Police, and as a cynical attempt to manipulate Pope 
John Paul II. I have lived in Cuba for many years, and was completely 
out of touch with the sensationalist, dishonest, nature of the 
establishment media today. It is worse today than it was 30 years ago. 
After years of being victimized by the "establishment" media it was 
naive of me to hope that I might finally get the opportunity to tell "my 
side of the story." Instead of an interview with me, what took place was 
a "staged media event" in three parts, full of distortions, inaccuracies 
and outright lies. NBC purposely misrepresented the facts. Not only did 
NBC spend thousands of dollars promoting this "exclusive interview 
series" on NBC, they also spent a great deal of money advertising this 
"exclusive interview" on black radio stations and also placed notices in 
local newspapers.

DISTORTIONS AND LIES IN THE NBC SERIES In an NBC interview Gov. Whitman 
was quoted as saying that "this has nothing to do with race, this had 
everything to do with crime." Either Gov. Whitman is completely 
unfamiliar with the facts in my case, or her sensitivity to racism and 
to the plight of black people and other people of color in the United 
States is at a sub-zero level. In 1973 the trial in Middlesex County had 
to be stopped because of the overwhelming racism expressed in the jury 
room. The court was finally forced to rule that the entire jury panel 
had been contaminated by racist comments like "If she's black, she's 
guilty." In an obvious effort to prevent us from being tried by "a jury 
of our peers the New Jersey courts ordered that a jury be selected from 
Morris County, New Jersey where only 2.2 percent of the population was 
black and 97.5 percent of potential jurors were white. In a study done 
in Morris County, one of the wealthiest counties in the country, 92 
percent of the registered voters said that they were familiar with the 
case through the news media, and 72 percent believed we were guilty 
based on pretrial publicity. During the jury selection process in Morris 
County, white supremacists from the National Social[ist] White People's 
Party, wearing Swastikas, demonstrated carrying signs reading "SUPPORT 
WHITE POLICE." The trial was later moved back to Middlesex County where 
70 percent thought I was guilty based on pretrial publicity I was tried 
by an all white jury, where the presumption of innocence was not the 
criteria for jury selection. Potential jurors were merely asked if they 
could "put their prejudices aside, and "render a fair verdict." The 
basic reality in the United States is that being black is a crime and 
black people are always "suspects" and an accusation is usually a 
conviction. Most white people still think that being a "black militant" 
or a "black revolutionary" is tantamount to being guilty of some kind of 
crime. The current situation in New Jersey's prisons, underlines the 
racism that dominates the politics of the state of New Jersey, in 
particular and in the U.S. as a whole. Although the population of New 
Jersey is approximately 78 percent white, more than 75 percent of New 
Jersey's prison population is made up of blacks and Latinos. 80 percent 
of the women in Jersey prisons are people of color. That may not seem 
like racism to Gov. Whitman, but it reeks of racism to us.

The NBC story implied that Governor Christie Whitman raised the reward 
for my capture based on my interview with NBC. The fact of the matter is 
that she has been campaigning since she was elected into office to 
double the reward for my capture. In 1994, she appointed Col. Carl 
Williams who immediately vowed to make my capture a priority. In 1995, 
Gov. Whitman sought to "match a $25,000 departmental appropriation 
sponsored by an "unidentified legislator." I watched a tape of Gov. 
Whitman's "testimony" in her interview with NBC. She gave a very 
dramatic, exaggerated version of what happened, but there is no evidence 
whatsoever to support her claim that Trooper Forester had "four bullets 
in him at least, and then they got up and with his own gun, fired two 
bullets into his head." She claimed that she was writing Janet Reno for 
federal assistance in my capture, based on what she saw in the NBC 
interview. If this is the kind of "information" that is being passed on 
to Janet Reno and the Pope, it is clear that the facts have been totally 
distorted. Whitman also claimed that my return to prison should be a 
condition for "normalizing relations with Cuba". How did I get so 
important that my life can determine the foreign relations between two 
governments? Anybody who knows anything about New Jersey politics can be 
certain that her motives are purely political. She, like Torrecelli and 
several other opportunistic politicians in New Jersey came to power, as 
part time lobbyists for the Batista faction - soliciting votes from 
right wing Cubans. They want to use my case as a barrier for normalizing 
relations with Cuba, and as a pretext for maintaining the immoral 
blockade against the Cuban people.

In what can only be called deliberate deception and slander NBC aired a 
photograph of a woman with a gun in her hand implying that the woman in 
the photograph was me. I was not, in fact, the woman in the photograph. 
The photograph was taken from a highly publicized case where I was 
accused of bank robbery. Not only did I voluntarily insist on 
participating in a lineup, during which witnesses selected another 
woman, but during the trial, several witnesses, including the manager of 
the bank, testified that the woman in that photograph was not me. I was 
acquitted of that bank robbery. NBC aired that photograph on at least 5 
different occasions, representing the woman in the photograph as me. How 
is it possible, that the New Jersey State Police, who claim to have a 
detective working full time on my case, Governor of New Jersey Christine 
Whitman, who claimed she reviewed all the "evidence," or NBC, which has 
an extensive research department, did not know that the photograph was 
false? It was a vile, fraudulent attempt to make me look guilty. NBC 
deliberately misrepresented the truth. Even after many people had called 
in, and there was massive fax, and e-mail campaign protesting NBC's 
mutilation of the facts, Ralph Penza and NBC continued to broadcast that 
photograph, representing it as me. Not once have the New Jersey State 
Police, Governor Christine Whitman, or NBC come forth and stated that I 
was not the woman in the photograph, or that I had been acquitted of 
that charge.

Another major lie and distortion was that we had left trooper Werner 
Forester on the roadside to die. The truth is that there was a major 
cover-up as to what happened on May 2, 1973. Trooper Harper, the same 
man who shot me with my arms raised in the air, testified that he 
returned to the State Police Headquarters which was less than 200 yards 
away, "To seek aid." However, tape recordings and police reports made on 
May 2, 1973 prove that not only did Trooper Harper give several 
conflicting statements about what happened on the turnpike, but he never 
once mentioned the name of Werner Forester, or the fact that the 
incident took place right in front of the Trooper Headquarters. In an 
effort to hide his tracks and cover his guilt he said nothing whatsoever 
about Forester to his superiors or to his fellow officers. In a clear 
attempt to discredit me, Col. Carl Williams of the New Jersey State 
Police was allowed to give blow by blow distortions of my interview. In 
my interview I stated that on the night of May 2, 1973 I was shot with 
my arms in the air, then shot again in the back. Williams stated "that 
is absolutely false. Our records show that she reached in her 
pocketbook, pulled out a nine millimeter weapon and started firing." 
However, the claim that I reached into my pocketbook and pulled out a 
gun, while inside the car was even contested by trooper Harper. Although 
on three official reports, and when he testified before the grand jury 
he stated that he saw me take a gun out of my pocketbook, he finally 
admitted under cross examination that he never saw me with my hands in a 
pocketbook, never saw me with a weapon inside the car, and that he did 
not see me shoot him.

The truth is that I was examined by 3 medical specialists: (1) A 
Neurologist who testified that I was immediately paralyzed immediately 
after the being shot. (2) A Surgeon who testified that "It was 
absolutely anatomically necessary that both arms be in the air for Mrs. 
Chesimard to receive the wounds." The same surgeon also testified that 
the claim by Trooper Harper that I had been crouching in a firing 
position when I was shot was "totally anatomically impossible." (3) A 
Pathologist who testified that "There is no conceivable way that it [the 
bullet] could have traveled over to hit the clavicle if her arm was 
down." he said "It was impossible to have that trajectory. "The 
prosecutors presented no medical testimony whatsoever to refute the 
above medical evidence. No evidence whatsoever was ever presented that I 
had a 9 millimeter weapon, in fact New Jersey State Police testified 
that the 9 millimeter weapon belonged to Zayd Malik Shakur based on a 
holster fitting the weapon that they was recovered from his body. There 
were no fingerprints, or any other evidence whatsoever that linked me to 
any guns or ammunition. The results of the Neutron Activation test to 
determine whether or not I had fired a weapon were negative. Although 
Col. Williams refers to us as the "criminal element" neither Zayd, or 
Sundiata Acoli or I were criminals, we were political activists. I was a 
college student until the police kicked down my door in an effort to 
force me to "cooperate" with them and Sundiata Acoli was a computer 
expert who had worked for NASA, before he joined the Black Panther Party 
and was targeted by COINTELPRO.

In an obvious maneuver to provoke sympathy for the police, the NBC 
series juxtaposed my interview with the weeping widow of Werner 
Forester. While I can sympathize with her grief, I believe that her 
appearance was deliberately included to appeal to peoples emotions, to 
blur the facts, to make me look like a villain, and to create the kind 
of lynch mob mentality that has historically been associated with white 
women portrayed as victims of black people. In essence the supposed 
interview with me became a forum for the New State Police, Forester's 
widow, and the obviously hostile commentary of Ralph Penza. The two 
initial programs together lasted 3.5 minutes - me - 59 seconds, the 
widow 50 seconds, the state police 38 seconds, and Penza - 68 seconds. 
Not once in the interview was I ever asked about Zayd, Sundiata or their 
families. As the interview went on, it was painfully evident that Ralph 
Penza would never see me as a human being. Although I tried to talk 
about racism and about the victims of government and police repression, 
it was clear that he was totally uninterested. I have stated publicly on 
various occasions that I was ashamed of participating in my trial in New 
Jersey trial because it was so racist, but I did testify. Even though I 
was extremely limited by the judge, as to what I could testify about, I 
testified as clearly as I could about what happened that night. After 
being almost fatally wounded I managed to climb in the back seat of the 
car to get away from the shooting. Sundiata drove the car five miles 
down the road carried me into a grassy area because he was afraid that 
the police would see the car parked on the side of the road and just 
start shooting into it again. Yes, it was five miles down the highway 
where I was captured, dragged out of the car, stomped and then left on 
the ground. Although I drifted in and out of consciousness I remember 
clearly that both while I was lying on the ground, and while I was in 
the ambulance, I kept hearing the State troopers ask "is she dead yet?" 
Because of my condition I have no independent recollection of how long I 
was on the ground, or how long it was before the ambulance was allowed 
to leave for the hospital, but in the trial transcript trooper Harper 
stated that it was while he was being questioned, some time after 2:00 
am that a detective told him that I had just been brought into the 
hospital. I was the only live "suspect" in custody, and prior to that 
time Harper, had never told anyone that a woman had shot him.

As I watched Governor Whitman's interview the one thing that struck me 
was her "outrage" at my joy about being a grandmother, and my "quite 
nice life" as she put it here in Cuba. While I love the Cuban people and 
the solidarity they have shown me, the pain of being torn away from 
everybody I love has been intense. I have never had the opportunity to 
see or to hold my grandchild. If Gov. Whitman thinks that my life has 
been so nice, that 50 years of dealing with racism, poverty, 
persecution, brutality, prison, underground, exile and blatant lies has 
been so nice, then Id be more than happy to let her walk in my shoes for 
a while so she can get a taste of how it feels. I am a proud black 
woman, and I'm not about to get on the television and cry for Ralph 
Penza or any other journalist, but the way I have suffered in my 
lifetime, and the way my people have suffered, only god can bear witness 
to.

Col. Williams of the New Jersey State Police stated "we would do 
everything we could go get her off the island of Cuba and if that 
includes kidnapping, we would do it." I guess the theory is that if they 
could kidnap millions of Africans from Africa 400 years ago, they should 
be able to kidnap one African woman today. It is nothing but an attempt 
to bring about the re-incarnation of the Fugitive Slave Act. All I 
represent is just another slave that they want to bring back to the 
plantation. Well, I might be a slave, but I will go to my grave a 
rebellious slave. I am and I feel like a maroon woman. I will never 
voluntarily accept the condition of slavery, whether its de-facto or 
ipso facto, official, or unofficial. In another recent interview, 
Williams talked about asking the federal government to add to the 
$50,000 reward for my capture. He also talked about seeking "outside 
money, or something like that, a benefactor, whatever." Now who is he 
looking to "contribute" to that "cause"? The ku klux klan, the neo nazi 
parties, the white militia organizations? But the plot gets even 
thicker. He says that the money might lure bounty hunters. "There are 
individuals out there, I guess they call themselves 'soldiers of fortune 
' who might be interested in doing something, in turning her over to 
us." Well, in the old days they used to call them slave catchers, 
trackers, or patter rollers, now they are called mercenaries. Neither 
the governor nor the state police say one word about "justice." They 
have no moral authority to do so. The level of their moral and ethical 
bankruptcy is evident in their eagerness to not only break the law and 
hire hoodlums, all in the name of "law and order." But you know what 
gets to me, what makes me truly indignant? With the schools in Paterson, 
N.J. falling down, with areas of Newark looking like a disaster area, 
with the crack epidemic, with the wide-spread poverty and unemployment 
in New Jersey, these depraved, decadent, would-be slave masters want 
federal funds to help put this "n-word wench" back in her place. They 
call me the "most wanted woman" in Amerikkka. I find that ironic. I've 
never felt very "wanted" before. When it came to jobs, I was never the 
"most wanted," when it came to "economic opportunities I was never the 
"most wanted, when it came to decent housing." It seems like the only 
time Black people are on the "most wanted" list is when they want to put 
us in prison. But at this moment, I am not so concerned about myself. 
Everybody has to die sometime, and all I want is to go with dignity. I 
am more concerned about the growing poverty, the growing despair that is 
rife in Amerikkka. I am more concerned about our younger generations, 
who represent our future. I am more concerned that one third of young 
black are either in prison or under the jurisdiction of the "criminal 
in-justice system." I am more concerned about the rise of the prison 
industrial complex that is turning our people into slaves again. I am 
more concerned about the repression, the police brutality, violence, the 
rising wave of racism that makes up the political landscape of the U.S. 
today. Our young people deserve a future, and I consider it the mandate 
of my ancestors to be part of the struggle to insure that they have one. 
They have the right to live free from political repression. The U.S. is 
becoming more and more of a police state and that fact compels us to 
fight against political repression. I urge you all, every single person 
who reads this statement, to fight to free all political prisoners. As 
the concentration camps in the U.S. turn into death camps, I urge you to 
fight to abolish the death penalty. I make a special, urgent appeal to 
you to fight to save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the only political 
prisoner who is currently on death row. It has been a long time since I 
have lived inside the United States. But during my lifetime I have seen 
every prominent black leader, politician or activist come under attack 
by the establishment media. When African Americans appear on news 
programs they are usually talking about sports, entertainment or they 
are in handcuffs. When we have a protest they ridicule it, minimized it, 
or cut the numbers of the people who attended in half.

The news is big business and it is owned operated by affluent white men. 
Unfortunately, they shape the way that many people see the world, and 
even the way people see themselves. Too often black journalists, and 
other journalists of color mimic their white counterparts. They often 
gear their reports to reflect the foreign policies and the domestic 
policies of the same people who are oppressing their people. In the 
establishment media, the bombing and of murder of thousands of innocent 
women and children in Libya or Iraq or Panama is seen as "patriotic," 
while those who fight for freedom, no matter where they are, are seen as 
"radicals," "extremists," or "terrorists." Like most poor and oppressed 
people in the United States, I do not have a voice. Black people, poor 
people in the U.S. have no real freedom of speech, no real freedom of 
expression and very little freedom of the press. The black press and the 
progressive media has historically played an essential role in the 
struggle for social justice. We need to continue and to expand that 
tradition. We need to create media outlets that help to educate our 
people and our children, and not annihilate their minds. I am only one 
woman. I own no TV stations, or Radio Stations or Newspapers. But I feel 
that people need to be educated as to what is going on, and to 
understand the connection between the news media and the instruments of 
repression in Amerikkka. All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will 
to tell the truth. But I sincerely ask, those of you in the Black media, 
those of you in the progressive media, those of you who believe in 
truth, freedom To publish this statement and to let people know what is 
happening. We have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless. 
FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS,
Wish I could be there, Assata Shakur
Havana, Cuba

THE TRADITION
(A poem by Assata Shakur)

Carry it on now.
Carry it on.
Carry it on now.
Carry it on.
Carry on the tradition.

Their were Black People since the childhood of time
who carried it on.
In Ghana and Mali and Timbuktu
We carried it on.
Carried on the tradition.

We hid in the bush.
When the slave masters came
holding spear
And when the moment was ripe,
leaped out and lanced the lifeblood
of our would-be masters.
We carried it on.

On slave ships,
hurling ourselves into oceans.
Slitting the throats of our captors.
We took their whips.
And their ships
Blood flowed in the Atlantic
and it wasn't all ours.
We carried it on.

Fed Missy arsenic apple pies.
Stole the axes from the shed.
Went and chopped off master's head.
We ran. We fought.
We organized a railroad.
An underground.
We carried it on.

In newspapers. In meetings.
In arguments and street fights.
We carried it on.

In tales told to children.
In chants and cantatas.
In poems and blues songs
and saxophone screams,
We carried it on.

In classrooms. In churches.
In courtrooms. In prisons.
We carried it on.

On soapboxes and picket lines.
Welfare lines, unemployment
Our lives on the line,
We carried it on.

In sit-ins and pray ins
And march ins and die ins,
We carried it on.

On cold Missouri midnights
Pitting shotguns against lynch mobs
On burning Brooklyn streets
Pitting rocks against rifles,
We carried it on.

Against water hoses and bulldogs.
Against nightsticks and bullets.
Against tanks and tear gas.
Needles and nooses.
Bombs and birth control.
We carried it on.

In Selma and San Juan.
Mozambique, Mississippi.
In Brazil and in Boston,
We carried it on.

Through the lies and the sell-outs,
The mistakes and the madness.
Through pain and hunger and frustration,
We carried it on.

Carried on the tradition.
Carried a strong tradition.
Carried a proud tradition.
Carried a Black tradition.
Carry it on.

Pass it down to the children.
Pass it down.
Carry it on.
Carry it on now.
Carry it on
TO FREEDOM!

Assata Shakur

"The Prison Industrial Complex"

Greetings Sisters, Brothers, Comrades,

Never in our history has critical resistance to the status quo been more 
important. The growth of the Prison Industrial complex has been 
appallingly rapid and the escalating repression that has accompanied it 
is totally alarming. What of future lies ahead of us? What are the 
implications of for our children?

Those who are targeted as the victims of the Prison Industrial Complex 
are mainly people of color. They are Native Americans, Africans, Asians, 
and Latinos, who came from societies where there were no prisons and 
where prisons were an unknown concept. Prisons were introduced in 
Africa, the Americas and Asia as by-products of slavery and colonialism, 
and they continue to be instruments of exploitation and oppression. In 
the heart of the imperialist empires, prisons also meant oppression. The 
prisons of Europe were so overcrowded that European prisoners were sent 
to the colonies and encouraged to enslave and colonize other peoples. In 
England, during the so-called period of expansion, there were not only 
debtor's prisons for the poor, but also more than 200 crimes that were 
punishable by death. During the French revolution, the storming and 
destruction of the Bastille Prison, became a symbol for liberation all 
over Europe. And today, those of us whose ancestors were imprisoned in 
Slave forts like Elmina, or Goree Island, now find ourselves imprisoned 
in places like Elmira, Rikers Island, Terminal Island, Marion or 
Florence. The prisons that are being constructed In the United States 
today are more sophisticated than concentration camps like Auschwitz or 
Dachau, but they serve the same purpose. The profits from prison 
industries, and prison slave labor is surpassing the super exploitation 
levels of forced labor in Nazi concentration camps.

The Prison Industrial Complex is not only a mechanism to convert Public 
tax money into profits for private corporations, it is an essential 
element of modern neo-liberal capitalism. It serves two purposes. One to 
neutralize and contain huge segments of potentially rebellious sectors 
of the population, and two, to sustain a system of super exploitation, 
where mainly black and Latino captives are imprisoned in white rural, 
overseer communities. People of color are easy targets. Our 
criminalization and villianization is an Amerikkkan tradition. The image 
of the dirty-lazy-shiftless- savage - backwards- good for nothing - 
darkies has been the underpinning of the racist culture and ideology, 
that dominates U.S. politics. One of the basic tenets of that revolution 
was that only rich, white men have the right to have a revolution, 
anyone else who struggles for one is a terrorist or a subversive. The 
truth of the matter is that oppressed people have, and have always had a 
great deal more to be outraged about than taxation without representation.

Repression, torture, and beatings are as common in U.S. prisons today as 
they were on slave plantations. And political prisoners bear the brunt 
of this systematic brutality. Those who fight against oppression are 
thrown into dungeons, rather than those who perpetuate it. The prolonged 
torture of solitary confinement is being used, not only as a weapon 
against political dissent, but as a weapon against anyone who protests 
any of the injustices of the system. How can you fight against 
injustice, without demanding the liberation of political prisoners?

Unfortunately, there are more young people behind bars because they have 
been inculcated with and are reproducing the values of this decadent 
capitalist system, than those who are consciously struggling to change 
it. During the 1960s, when the movement was at its height, the prison 
population was only a fraction of what it is today. Those who 
institutionalized the kidnapping of Africans, those who orchestrated 
genocide against Native Americans, those who plunder the treasures of 
the world, and who are responsible for the most heinous crimes on this 
planet, want to preach to us about law and order. Those who profit from 
human misery and deny us education, affirmation action, health care, 
decent housing, want to lecture us about morality. Many of us watch 
helplessly as our children imitate and internalize the greedy, 
ostentatious, culture of conspicuous consumption, practiced by those who 
oppress us. We watch the same people who import drugs into the country, 
who distribute them, in our communities, wage a war on us, in the name 
of fighting drugs.

The Prison Industrial complex is not a distortion of modern global 
capitalism; it is part and parcel of that system. It is not enough to 
fight against the Prison Industrial complex; we must fight against the 
ideology that promotes it. Human beings are social beings and have a 
basic need to live in nurturing communities, instead of hostile ones. 
The people on this planet have an infinite potential to contribute to 
this planet and it is a crime to prevent us from doing so. The human 
beings who live on this planet have an unlimited ability to learn, to 
grow, to change, to be generous, to invent and to share. It is a crime 
to prevent young people from developing their talents. It is a crime to 
let individualistic values destroy the collective good. To those who 
rule this planet, we are all disposable. Our only value to them is the 
wealth that we are capable of producing. It is a system with no 
compassion, no love, and no faith.

What kind of mentality is it that would classify a 5 year old as being 
incorrigible? What kind of system would try a 12 year as an adult? What 
kind of mentality is it that would sentence a 20-year-old to life 
without parole? How can a system claim to be nonviolent, while praising 
the death penalty inside its borders, and bombing and killing innocent 
people all over the world? This is a system that sells and promotes and 
exports violence. It is a system that would rather warehouse and murder 
its young, than cultivate them. In this grotesque world with its 
grotesque, cynical values, it sounds, naive, to believe in people, and 
believe in our ability to create a better world.

But how can you believe in a future if you don't believe in people who 
are going to make it? How can you believe in human rights unless you 
believe in human beings? How can you say you believe in justice, without 
believing in social justice, political justice and economic justice for 
all people?

The Prison Industrial complex not only destroys individuals; it destroys 
families and communities. If we do not destroy it, it will destroy us. I 
urge you to do everything you can to break these chains.

Free All Political Prisoners!
Free Mumia Abu Jamal!

Assata Shakur,
Havana Cuba

"A Message To My Sistas"

At this time I'd like to say a few words especially to my sisters: 
SISTERS. BLACK PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE FREE UNLESS BLACK WOMEN PARTICIPATE
IN EVERY ASPECT OF OUR STRUGGLE, ON EVERY LEVEL OF OUR STRUGGLE.I think 
that Black women, more than anybody on the face of the earth, recognize 
the urgency of our situation. Because it is We who come face to face 
daily with the institutions of our oppression. And because it is We who 
have borne the major responsibility of raising our children. And it is 
We who have to deal with the welfare systems that do not care about the 
welfare of our children. And it is We who have to deal with the school 
systems that do not educate our children. It is We who have to deal with 
the racist teachers who teach our children to hate themselves. It is We 
who have seen the terrible effects of racism on our children. I JUST 
WANT TO TAKE A MOMENT OUT TO EXPRESS MY LOVE TO ALL OF YOU WHO RISK YOUR 
LIVES DAILY STRUGGLING OUT HERE ON THE FRONT LINES. We who have watched 
our young grow too old, too soon. We who have watched our children come 
home angry and frustrated and seen them grow more bitter, more 
disillusioned with the passing of each day. And We who have seen the 
sick, trapped look on the faces of our children when they come to fully 
realize what it means to be Black in Amerikkka. And we know what 
deprivation is. How many times have We run out of bus fare, rent money, 
food money and how many times have our children gone to school in 
hand-me-down clothes, with holes in their shoes. We know what a 
hell-hole Amerikkka is. We're afraid to let our children go out and 
play. We're afraid to walk the streets at night. We sisters, We have 
seen our young, the babies that We brought into this world with such 
great hopes for, We have seen their bodies bloated and aching from 
drugs, scarred and deformed by bullet holes. We know what oppression is. 
We have been abused in every way imaginable. We have been abused 
economically, politically. We have been abused physically, and We have 
been abused sexually. And sisters, We have a long and glorious history 
of struggle on this land/planet. Afrikan women were strong and 
courageous warriors long before We came to this country in chains. And 
here in Amerikkka, our sisters have been on the front lines. Sister 
Harriet Tubman led the underground railroad. And sisters like Rosa 
Parks, Fannie Lou Hammer, Sandra Pratt and our Queen Mother Moore have 
carried it on. Sisters, We have been the backbone of our communities, 
and We have got to be the backbone of our nation. We have got to build 
strong family units, based on love and struggle. We don't have no time 
to play around.

A REVOLUTIONARY WOMAN CAN'T HAVE NO REACTIONARY MAN.

If he's not about liberation, if he's not about struggle, if he ain't 
about building a strong Black nation then he ain't about nothing. We 
know how to struggle. We know how to struggle and finagle to survive. We 
know what it means, sisters, to struggle tooth and nail. We know what it 
means to struggle with love. We know what unity is. We know what 
sisterhood is. We have always been kind to each other, brought each 
other hot soup and biscuits. We have always helped each other through 
the hard times. Sisters, We must celebrate Afrikan womanhood. We don't 
want to be like Miss Ann. She can keep her false eyelashes and her 
false, despoiled image of womanhood. She can keep her mink stole and her 
French provincial furniture. We will define for ourselves what womanhood 
is. And We will create our own style and our own ways of dress. We can't 
have no white man in France telling Afrikan women what to look like. We 
will create our own New Afrikan way of living. We will create our own 
way of being and living our own New Afrikan culture, taking the best of 
the old and mixing it with the new. SISTERS WE HAVE GOT TO TAKE CONTROL 
OF OUR LIVES AND OUR FUTURE
WHEREVER WE ARE. AND WE HAVE GOT TO ORGANIZE OURSELVES INTO A STRONG 
BODY OF AFRIKAN WOMEN. Greetings Sisters and Brothers,

As we move toward a new millennium, we must face a bitter truth. For 
African people born and raised in this country, the 20th century has 
meant the transformation and the continuation of the same greedy, racist 
policies that kept our ancestors enslaved. Our relationship with the 
U.S. government is still one of domination and forced subordination, 
using the cruelest forms of repression, the most sophisticated 
techniques of mind control, based on vicious lies and distortions. The 
U.S. government not only uses its military, economic, political and 
propaganda machinery to dominate and exploit black people and other 
oppressed people inside its borders, it uses the same system to try to 
dominate and exploit entire countries, and subjugate huge portions of 
the world's population. I don't have to talk about the terrible 
oppression our people are living under, you know that better than i do. 
Many of us who believed that we could work for change inside the system, 
have discovered that we were only working under it, the same system that 
denies us our basic liberties, our human rights and opposes our quest 
for social justice and human development. In the hostile reality that we 
are facing it is evident the only solutions are radical solutions - 
radical changes in the priorities, and in the political and economic 
structure of the U.S. government.

More than at any other time in the last 20 years, millions of black 
people are crying out for change, for self determination, for principled 
leadership and for a genuinely democratic movement. I am elated and very 
proud that so many seasoned political activists have risen to the 
occasion and come together to try and meet the many challenges that we 
as a people are facing. Our commitment to social change represents our 
commitment to the future. We have an heavy historical duty that we must 
fulfill, but is a beautiful and noble task. It is not easy to build a 
growing, organized, sustained people's movement, but without such a 
movement the future of our children is in extreme danger. As in any 
struggle for social change, there will be many different opinions, and 
many different approaches. I hope that we have learned enough from the 
past to minimize our differences and to maximize what we have in common. 
I hope that we will leave our negativity and pessimism at home, and 
allow ourselves to be open, to be creative, to be open, to be 
understanding. I hope that we will differ with love, debate with 
kindness and take full advantage of the strength and the sweetness of 
unity. Let us call on the spirit of our ancestors. Let us be humbled by 
their strength, by their sacrifices and by the beauty and love that they 
passed down to us.

Free all Political Prisoners,
I send you Love and Revolutionary Greetings
 >From Cuba, One of the Largest, Most Resistant and
Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps)
That has ever existed on the Face of this Planet.

Assata Shakur
Havana, Cuba



BLACK POWER!!!
TO DEFINE DEVELOP DEFEND THE BEST INTEREST OF THE BLACK COMMUNITY

http;//www.afrocubaweb.com/assata.htm 
<http://www.afrocubaweb.com/assata.htm>

http://www.assatashakur.org/index.htm
___\
Stay Strong\
\
"Peace sells but who's buying?"\
Megadeth\
\
"This mathematical rhythmatical mechanism enhances my wisdom\
of Islam, keeps me calm from doing you harm, when I attack, it's Vietnam"\
--HellRazah\
\
"It's not too good to stay in a white man's country too long"\
Mutabartuka\
\
http://www.sleepybrain.net/vanilla.html\
\
http://awol.objector.org/artistprofiles/welfarepoets.html\
\
http://ilovepoetry.com/search.asp?keywords=braithwaite&orderBy=date\
\
http://www.dpgrecordz.com/fredwreck/\
\
http://www.lowliferecords.co.uk/\
\
http://loudandoffensive.com/\
\
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/THCO2\
}

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