Assata Shakur, born on this day in 1947, is a revolutionary socialist and former member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA) who became the first woman to be added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list in 2013.
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Shakur grew up in New York City and Wilmington, North Carolina. She became involved in political activism at Borough of Manhattan Community College and City College of New York, participating in sit-ins and civil rights protests.
After graduating from college, Shakur briefly joined the Black Panther Party, leading its Harlem chapter. She left the Panthers and joined the Black Liberation Army, a black power group that was inspired by the Viet Cong and Algerian resistance movements and waged guerrilla warfare against the U.S. government from 1970 to 1981. Shakur was one of the targets of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program.
After being involved in a shootout with New Jersey police officers, Shakur was convicted on multiple counts of assault and murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1979, BLA members freed her in a bloodless prison escape.
Shakur successfully sought political asylum in Cuba, where she died on September 25, 2025, at the age of 78
“I didn’t know what a fool they had made out of me until I grew up and started to read real history.”
- Assata Shakur
I hope you nerds have a good month of July 
Remember no crackers
Hasan went to bat for GraHHam Platner, minimized the war criminality of it, and glazes liberal zionists. I can’t even consider him a leftist of any stripe.
If a western “progressive” isn’t anti-imperialist, they’re not leftist, they’re a liberal at best (and that’s not a good thing at all! The project of liberalism is welded to genocide). If their socialism isn’t internationalist in nature, then is it… national socialism?
My larger point is that if someone like him is considered extreme than Americans have a much larger mountain to overcome.
And it vindicates BadEmpanada who says Americans are too selfish to ever let leftism firmly take root. It’s a bitter pill but he’s largely correct
Yes and yes and it’s been very disappointing seeing how even many American “leftists” I run into on a regular basis aren’t.