Assata Olugbala Shakur is an American political activist who was a member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). In 1977, she was convicted in the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. She escaped from prison in 1979 and is currently wanted by the FBI, with a $1 million FBI reward for information leading to her capture, and an additional $1 million reward offered by the Attorney General of New Jersey.
Afeni Shakur Davis was an American political activist and member of the Black Panther Party. Shakur was the mother of rapper Tupac Shakur and the executor of his estate. She founded the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation and also served as the CEO of Amaru Entertainment, Inc., a record and film production company she founded.
William Moses Kunstler was an American lawyer and civil rights activist, known for defending the Chicago Seven. Kunstler was an active member of the National Lawyers Guild, a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the co-founder of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the "leading gathering place for radical lawyers in the country."
The Black Liberation Army (BLA) was an underground Marxist-Leninist, black-nationalist militant organization that operated in the United States from 1970 to 1981. Composed of former Black Panthers (BPP) and Republic of New Afrika (RNA) members who served above ground before going underground, the organization's program was one of war against the United States government, and its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States." The BLA carried out a series of bombings, killings of police officers and drug dealers, robberies, and prison breaks.
Mutulu Shakur was an American activist and a member of the Black Liberation Army who was sentenced to sixty years in prison for his involvement in a 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored truck in which a guard and two police officers were murdered.
Sundiata Acoli is an American political activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1974 for murdering a New Jersey state trooper. Acoli was granted parole in 2022 at the age of 85.
Marilyn Jean Buck was an American Marxist and feminist poet who was imprisoned for her participation in the 1979 prison escape of Assata Shakur, the 1981 Brink's robbery and the 1983 U.S. Senate bombing. Buck received an 80-year sentence, which she served in federal prison, from where she published numerous articles and other texts. She was released on July 15, 2010, less than a month before her death at age 62 from cancer.
Silvia Baraldini is an Italian activist. She was active in both the Black Power and Puerto Rican independence movements in the United States in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. In 1982 she was sentenced to 43 years under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for conspiring to commit two armed robberies, driving a secondary getaway car during the prison break of murder convict and fellow political activist Assata Shakur and for contempt of court for refusing to testify before a Grand Jury that was investigating the activities of the Puerto Rican independence movement.
Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women is a prison facility for women of the state of New Jersey Department of Corrections, located in Union Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, near Clinton. Its official abbreviation is EMCFW. The facility was named for Edna Mahan, one of the first female correctional superintendents in the U.S.
The Panther 21 is a group of twenty-one Black Panther members who were arrested and accused of planned coordinated bombing and long-range rifle attacks on two police stations and an education office in New York City in 1969, who were all acquitted by a jury in May 1971, after revelations during the trial that police infiltrators played key organising roles.
Various American fugitives in Cuba have found political asylum in Cuba after participating in militant activities in the Black power movement or the Independence movement in Puerto Rico. Other fugitives in Cuba include defected CIA agents and others. The Cuban government formed formal ties with the Black Panther Party in the 1960s, and many fugitive Black Panthers would find political asylum in Cuba, but after their activism was seen being repressed in Cuba many became disillusioned. House Concurrent Resolution 254, passed in 1998, put the number at 90. One estimate, c. 2000, put the number at approximately 100.
Nehanda Isoke Abiodun was an African American hip hop activist, black revolutionary, and fugitive who was living in Cuba. Abiodun was wanted by the FBI in connection of the 1981 robbery of a Brink's truck that resulted in the killing of a Brink's guard and two New York police officers. The United States federal government also charged Abiodun in connection with Assata Shakur's escape from prison, along with Susan Rosenberg.
Raymond A. Brown was an American criminal defense lawyer who represented a wide variety of high-profile clients, ranging from politicians to accused spies, including New Jersey state senator Angelo Errichetti, boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and "Dr. X" physician Mario Jascalevich.
Americans in Cuba consist of expatriates and immigrants from the United States as well as Cubans of American descent. As of September 1998, there are about 2,000 to 3,000 Americans living in Cuba.
Mary Prince is an African American woman wrongly convicted of murder who then became the nanny for Amy Carter, the daughter of US President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter, and was eventually granted a full pardon.
The Struggle Everlasting is a 1918 American silent allegorical drama film directed by James Kirkwood, Sr. and starring stage star Florence Reed. It is based on a 1907 play, The Struggle Everlasting, by Edward Milton Royle.
Assata's Daughters is an American Black Power organization of young radical African-American women and girls in Chicago, which operates through a Black, queer, feminist lens, that focuses on political education, organizing, and revolutionary services. The group is dedicated to radical liberatory activism in the tradition of Assata Shakur, a former member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). The organization is often criticised for this connection, as Assata Shakur was convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and other crimes in 1977 in the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper.
Eyes of The Rainbow is a 1997 documentary film by Gloria Rolando about Assata Shakur. The film was recorded in Cuba 33 years after Shakur's exile. The film consists primarily of a personal interview with Assata herself on the day her mother died as she recounts her experience as a prisoner in the United States. She reflects on the abuses she suffered as an inmate and the night she escaped from the correctional facility. The film encompasses the African Spirit Oya to illustrate the struggles Shakur has faced as a revolutionary. In the video Shakur talks about her life in Cuba, the influence of her grandmother as well as Afro-Cuban ancestry as a result of the African Diaspora.
Assata: An Autobiography is a 1988 autobiographical book by Assata Shakur. The book was written in Cuba where Shakur currently has political asylum.
