I’m gonna live as hard as i can and as full as i can until i die

Much like the reason I started this blog, I picked up ASSATA while trying to discover what being a black woman meant to me. I was searching for stories of other black women that would help me feel less alone. In my quest, I read Angela Davis’s autobiography, Michelle Obama’s Becoming, and ASSATA. I never expected that 274 pages would change my life and unlock my mind. This post will be longer than usual, so please read at your own expense. Some of my favorite quotes and ones that I believe are currently relevant from her will be sprinkled throughout.

Black men internalized the white man’s opinion of Black women . . . a lot of us still act like we’re back on the plantation with massa pulling the strings

Many consider all Black women potential prostitutes

Black self-determination is a basic right, and if we don’t have the right to determine our destinies, then who does?

I have read a lot of writings by Black women. I have read bell hooks, I have read Audre Lorde, I have read Angela Davis, I have read Alice Walker, I have read Zora Neale Hurston, I have read Toni Morrison, I have read Nikki Giovanni, and I have read Elaine Brown. No one has made me feel as seen and less alone as Assata Shakur. In her autobiography, I found myself annotating nearly every single page. I felt like she was writing everything in my mind, and everything I’ve ever thought. She writes in a way that’s accessible to everyone, which truly reflects her dedication to educating our community. Ms. Shakur took her responsibility on this earth to serve others very seriously. She died still in complete control of her freedom, and that is something we should all learn to live by. Our liberation is our responsibility, both individually and collectively.

Nobody is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free

Not only was George Washington probably a big liar, but he had once sold a slave for a keg or rum

When I started reading ASSATA, I instantly connected with Assata. She mentions having an interest in her history and her ancestors at a very young age, so did I. I believe I stepped into consciousness very early in my life, and because of that, to an extent, I felt disconnected from my peers. I often still feel this way. She talks about her inquisitive mind as a child and her desire to be free and explore the world on her own. I also had these traits and desires as a kid and found my escape through media. In her book, she shifts back and forth in time from her childhood to her criminal proceedings until she reaches a point where she can intertwine the two. Throughout the book, you see her become increasingly conscious and aware of what it takes and means to be free. My favorite thing about her is that when she has these revelations about liberation, she changes her behavior. She practiced what she preached, rather than just preaching to anyone who would listen. In fact, she condemns people who do that, which I appreciate and completely agree with her on. Assata practiced everything that she preached and was not above changing her mind when she noticed that she was wrong. This is a trait I aspire to have and greatly admire. During my first read of the book, I found myself annotating in the margins as if we were having a conversation. It was a personal goal of mine to travel to Cuba in 2027 in hopes of finding her and learning all I could. She is the only role model of mine that I have never met, and she is my biggest.

Anybody . . . could come right off the boat and get more rights than amerikan-born Blacks

Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them

Her book not only teaches us about her life but also about our history. Many times while reading it, I looked up the people she mentioned to learn their stories. She makes the reader aware of societal issues that plague our community. Published in 1987, the issues she critiques still impact us today. She explains how our colonized minds influence us at all ages. She emphasizes the importance of decolonizing our minds so we don’t pass down our old ways of thinking to future generations. From colorism to the abuse of Black women by Black men, she isn’t afraid or ashamed to address these topics. We need more Black women like her and people in general who will prioritize collective progress over personal gain and have no shame when it comes to speaking the truth to educate others.

The world for me then was a big question mark, and the biggest question of all was where i fit in

A lot of people don’t know how many ways racism can manifest itself and how many ways people fight against it . . . When i think back to some of those kids who were labeled “troublemakers” and “problem students,” i realize that many of them were unsung heroes who fought to maintain some sense of dignity and self-worth.

Every time there’s a holiday, birthday, or any occasion to give a gift, I always pick up a copy of ASSATA. I believe everyone should read this book. Some of my close friends who I have gifted it to have read it and thanked me for gifting it to them. It means a lot to me that some of them actually took the time to read it and were able to get something out of it, just like I did. I don’t even regret introducing the Klansman to the book. He then let a white woman buy him a copy because he tells everyone he meets that it’s his “favorite book,” though he read my copy and had no clue who she was before he met me. Still, I do not regret sharing this book with him because I truly believe that the more people who read it, the better the world will be. Funny ending to that story is that the day she passed, I texted him, and he responded, “I have no one to talk to. No one around me gets it or even knows who she was.” Sadly, the Klansman read the book, but only enough to seem cool and revolutionary to impress white women and hive-minded liberals. I’m sure he’ll never read this blog, but if he does, this quote is for him and his hive-minded liberal friends: “Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory.” Outside of the Klansman, my line sister, best friends, and summer fling have all come back to me and reported how her words brought them peace. The last 100 pages of the book serve as a kind of guidebook to organizing, and these pages are the ones I related to the most. Aside from telling us what to do and not to do when organizing, she shares her thoughts on self-proclaimed “revolutionaries,” and I had thought almost every one she expressed on these pages.

I want to help free the ghetto, not run away from it, leaving my people behind

Our desire to be free has got to manifest itself in everything we are and do

Revolution is about change, and the first place the change begins is in yourself

When I heard the news, I instantly cried and cried for hours. I felt like a piece of me had died with her. A local Pan-Africanist community in my area held a homegoing service for her, which I attended. I originally was not going to go because I was afraid I would not be able to contain my tears. But after thinking about it, I decided to attend because I knew that’s what she would have wanted: for us to heal in community. I started writing this post that day and needed some time before I could finish. From Kash Patel opening his idiotic mouth to slander Assata but praising Charlie Kirk, to major and minor news outlets referring to her as if she was nothing more than Tupac’s godmother (or mother because some didn’t do their research), to Common and others posting pictures of Angela Davis while trying to “honor” Assata Shakur, I became enraged and needed a break. This country has already taken so much from her, and yet they still could not honor her respectfully. I am not sure if it was better for people to say what they did or to remain silent and act as if she never existed. Either way, it was hard for me to watch people not honor her and her legacy the way I believed they should.

They’ve got a gang of criminals in the White House

[T]hose who have the most money control the country and . . . buy and sell presidents, congressmen, and judges the ones who pass the laws and enforce the laws that benefit their benefactors

Today, people outside my community refer to Assata as a domestic terrorist and/or a cop killer. I would never expect the enemy to treat her with respect, nor to acknowledge that she was tortured under their hand. But that is exactly what happened. Because America lacks a clear definition of domestic torture, our police and military systems often get away with a lot. Yet, even after the torture and physical and mental abuse she endured, she STILL decided to make the best of her situation and forge her own path toward liberation. To me, the most radical act she committed was deciding to get pregnant while in jail. I deeply admire this choice. She defined what freedom meant to her and refused to let the system keep her from doing the most radical thing a Black woman can do: choosing to have a Black child on her own terms. When I reached that part of her book, I decided that when I have a daughter, her name will be Assata. My mother told me, “if you name your daughter that, you better make sure she’s as strong as you so that she can take everything that comes with that name.” Those words from my mother have been sitting with me a lot heavier recently. This country took so much from Ms. Shakur, and you can still find photos of her smiling while in Cuba, away from her family. We should take a page from her book and learn to love our neighbors, educate ourselves and our youth, and forge our own paths to liberation. This is a blog about black womanhood, and Assata Shakur is what black womanhood looks like to me.

The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows . . . But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave

I’m not quite sure what freedom is, but i know damn well what it ain’t