Assata Shakur was accused of murdering a New Jersey State
Trooper on May 2, 1973. Assata, herself, was shot in that incident, yet she was
handcuffed to her hospital bed and questioned and threatened by local, state and
federal police. She was vilified in the press, accused of robbing banks,
accused of kidnapping, and all other kinds of crimes. All those trials were
either dismissed or she was acquitted.
The one conviction, supposedly for the murder of the New
Jersey State Trooper occurred in 1977. For four years she had been sent from
prison to prison, many times in solitary confinement, once the only female in
an all-male prison. In 1979 she escaped from prison and has been living in Cuba.
Assata Shakur tells her story in Assata: An Autobiography. Assata starts her story from the events of May 2, 1973, but then goes back to her childhood, spent between her mother up north and her grandparents down in North Carolina. Assata was restless as a teenager; she even ran away from home. At the same time, she had been introduced to fine arts by her Aunt Evelyn and had learned how to work in her grandparent’s store down south. In addition to Assata’s descriptions both of her childhood and her time in prison, she also offers commentary on this country’s race issues that are still in effect today.
The Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series continued
at the Wilson Library on Saturday, June 11. Nine of us met to discuss Assata
Shakur’s autobiography: Assata: An Autobiography. I think several people
jumped in asking, “Why didn’t she capitalize her pronoun “I?”
I offered that perhaps she was patterning herself after
Lucille Clifton, who didn’t capitalize “I’ and didn’t capitalize the first letters
of her name either. Someone also mentioned bell hooks, who also never
capitalized her name.
Robin offered this assessment of Assata: “She was a wild person;
she couldn’t get along with her mom. This fits the profile of someone who
becomes a revolutionary. If you read the Wikipedia entry, you can see how she
escaped prison. She went to Pittsburg before going to Cuba, where she is today.”
Bonnie: “There was a big build-up to that first trial and
then she was acquitted”
Sun pointed out that it was clear that the prosecutors’ arguments were all propaganda. “For me, it was hard to digest the information. Just the thought of leveling the playing field is perceived as a threat. Maybe my children, who are 17 and 10, will get to learn the real truth about Assata. A great deal of money goes into organizations designed to dismantle the opportunities of another group of people, people who just want to live their lives. People have escaped political oppression from all over the world, yet we ignore the oppression going on here. I experienced this same feeling back in February when we discussed How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith. I don’t think it is fair to read these books and we don’t even have the language to begin to discuss them. It’s a discovery for white people but a reality for me. You have to be introduced to things, but we should be mindful about how we’re introducing these things. We’re reading material, but with no foundation.”
Kay said she disagreed. “I read the book. I can relate to
everything in this book. If you read this book and now you have questions, you
can go seek more information. If someone hadn’t been exposed to this history,
they could pick up this book and go from there.”
Bonnie: “There’s an assumption that white people aren’t up
to the task of doing the deep empathetic reading required to understand these
books. I can’t tell you how many books I have on white privilege which raised
my consciousness. I know that Jim Crow was a backlash against reconstruction I
also know that Donald Trump was a backlash against Barack Obama.”
Sun: “Yes, yes to both of you. There are even Black people
who are unwilling to acknowledge this country’s history, facts, just the facts
alone. It wouldn’t be fair to just dismiss the notion that these things are
introduced without a foundation. With the book we’ve read, it could prompt a
person to further explore, or it could prompt them to just shut down.”
Laura added that she hadn’t heard of Assata’s name before.
She said that recently a BLM street painting had the name Joanne Chesimard. “I
appreciate having the homework,” referring to the homework of learning more
about the book on her own. She addressed
Sun specifically, asking “were you hoping we can have an action around this
reading?”
Kay answered, saying, “something like this (reading these
books) is the foundation. Assata received a foundation in art when her
aunt took her around to museums. Her grandparents gave her a foundation in
entrepreneurship when they had their store on the beach.”
Robin said it’s complicated in this group because it’s an
open group, different people could come almost every month.
Barb added to this remark, stating, “part of the challenge
is to discuss race in a racially mixed group. It’s been moving and important to
me that we’re able to have these talks and I know that these talks bring up
lots of stuff for each of us”
Deb spoke up, saying, “I had this book for a long time. I
was part of a political prisoner defense committee in New Haven in the early 70’s.
Black Liberation Army folks were here in New Haven, Not Assata, but 3 young men.
Martha, who was part of the defense committee in New York came up to help us
get our defense committee started. I went with Martha to various trials. I went
to one of Assata’s trials. I even went with Martha to visit Assata in the West
Virginia prison. She was showing us that she was wearing a NY city subway token
fashioned into a pendant on a necklace. Someone had sent her a guitar and she
was complaining how everyone else wanted to use it and she never got a chance
to play it.”
Kay said, “There were so many things I could relate to: the
relationship with her grandparents. I also had an Aunt Evelyn. I tried to do
what her Aunt Evelyn did for her for my own nieces and nephews. The young man
who encouraged her to get her life together; The Black Church and seeing the
people get happy; the music, the energy, as a young person going to my father’s
church which was a Baptist church in Harlem, I witnessed that as well; the games played
on the playground. When I read this book, I found out about young people who
were killed by police officers; the numbers running; and how people were
arrested. I grew up in the Bronx. People in my own family played the
numbers daily. I never heard of anyone getting arrested. I couldn’t imagine
anyone going to prison for numbers. The teaching experience on page 188, she
describes her experience teaching and then she talked about her mother
teaching.”
I called the group’s attention to the part where Assata saw
a neighborhood girl all dressed in white, going to make her First Communion.
Assata asked her, “Are you going to be in a Tom Thumb Wedding? The girl
answered, “No, I’m going to make my First Communion.” Assata was so amazed by
this that she wanted to become Catholic so she could do this as well. She went
through all the classes and prerequisites to become Catholic.
Bonnie responded that there was a point where Assata
sounded like she had become an atheist too. She called our attention to page
191 where Assata said she couldn’t relate to a “great white father in the sky.”
To my sweet, shy momma.
Who is uneasy with people
cause she don’t know how
to be phony,
and is afraid to be real.
Who has longed for sculptured gardens.
Whose potted plant
Dies slowly on the window sill.
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