Assata Shakur Most Wanted

I lived though the 1960s and witnessed the excessive efforts government agencies used to destroy black organizations and black leaders. When they talk about terrorism the government failed to address militias or the KKK.

Yet, Fred Hampton, Bunche Carter, Malcolm X, and someone we all know as a man of piece – Dr. King were targeted though what was called COINTELPRO. In my view there have been consistent and sustained assaults on the freedom of people of color though police shootings and abuse, which is a more pressing issue in the African American community.

I won’t rant too much on the recent decision to list the exiled former Black Panther Assata Shakur as the first woman named to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list. So I will simply ask that you listen to legendary African American activist, Angela Davis, as well as Shakur’s longtime attorney, Lennox Hinds. Davis, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is the subject of the recent film, "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners."

She argues that the FBI’s latest move, much like its initial targeting of Shakur and other Black Panthers four decades ago, is politically motivated. Listen to the facts and see if this is an effort to strike fear and retribution designed to frighten people who are involved in struggles today. Forty years ago may seem like it was a long time ago but slavery ended in 1865 and it took until 1965 for African American’s to use the same bathroom or drink from the same water fountain as whites.

In the beginning of the 21st century, we’re still fighting the very same issues — police violence, healthcare, education, people in prison, and poverty. A professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University, Hinds has represented Shakur since 1973 says this is a political act pushed by the state of New Jersey, by some members of Congress from Miami; with the intent of putting pressure on the Cuban government and to inflame public opinion. You be the judge. 

(Democracy Now)