“Assata Olugbala Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Chesimard; July 16, 1947) is a former member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), who was convicted in the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973.
Shakur is wanted by the FBI and there is a 2 million dollar reward for her apprehension.
Born in Flushing, Queens, she grew up in New York City and Wilmington, North Carolina. After she ran away from home several times, her aunt, who would later act as one of her lawyers, took her in. She became involved in political activism at Borough of Manhattan Community College and City College of New York.
After graduation, she began using the name Assata Shakur, and briefly joined the Black Panther Party. She then joined the BLA, a loosely knit offshoot of the Black Panthers, which was designed to provide social uplift, rebel against social injustices, and serve as a defense mechanism against the ongoing brutality from police organizations.
Assata was charged with several crimes and was the subject of a multi-state manhunt. In May 1973, Shakur was arrested after being wounded in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, where New Jersey State Trooper James Harper was wounded, New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and BLA member Zayd Malik Shakur were killed.
Between 1973 and 1977, Shakur was charged with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery, and kidnapping in relation to the shootout and six other incidents. She was acquitted on three of the charges and three were dismissed In 1977, she was convicted of the murder of State Trooper Foerster and of seven other felonies related to the shootout; her defense argued medical evidence suggested her innocence.
While serving a life sentence for murder, she escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women n 1979. She surfaced in Cuba in 1984, where she was granted political asylum. Shakur has lived in Cuba since, despite US government efforts to have her returned. She has been on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorist list since 2013 as Joanne Deborah Chesimard and was the first woman to be added to this list.”
In 1988 Assata Shakur wrote and published Assata: An Autobiography in Cuba. The autobiography begins on May 2, 1973. Shakur recounts what happened in the aftermath of the shooting on the New Jersey Turnpike, her hospitalization, incarceration, pregnancy, and trial, and describes her early childhood growing up in Queens, New York with her mother, spending her summers in Wilmington, North Carolina with her grandparents, and the beginning of her radicalization to becoming a prominent Black Power and human rights revolutionary.
Excerpt quoted directly from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assata_Shakur
Sources: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assata_Shakur 2. Hinds, Lennox S. (December 1987). Foreword, An Autobiography of Assata Shakur. Lawrence Hill Books. ISBN 0-88208-221-3. 3. "Joanne Chesimard First Woman Named to Most Wanted Terrorists List". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved 2020-07-22. 4. "JOANNE DEBORAH CHESIMARD" Federal Bureau of Investigation.