Assata: An Autobiography

by Assata Shakur

I believe in living. I believe in the spectrum of Beta days and Gamma people. I believe in sunshine. In windmills and waterfalls, tricycles and rocking chairs. And i believe that seeds grow into sprouts. And sprouts grow into trees. I believe in the magic of the hands. And in the wisdom of the eyes. I believe in rain and tears. And in the blood of infinity. I believe in life. And i have seen the death parade march through the torso of the earth, sculpting mud bodies in its path. I have seen the destruction of the daylight, and seen bloodthirsty maggots prayed to and saluted. I have seen the kind become the blind and the blind become the bind in one easy lesson. I have walked on cut glass. I have eaten crow and blunder bread and breathed the stench of indifference. I have been locked by the lawless.

Handcuffed by the haters. Gagged by the greedy. And, if i know any thing at all, it’s that a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down. I believe in living. I believe in birth. I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth. And i believe that a lost ship, steered by tired, seasick sailors, can still be guided home to port.

We had been completely brainwashed and we didn’t even know it. We accepted white value systems and white standards of beauty and, at times, we accepted the white man’s view of ourselves. We had never been exposed to any other point of view or any other standard of beauty. From when i was a tot, i can remember Black people saying, “Niggas ain’t shit.” “You know how lazy niggas are.” “Give a nigga an inch and he’ll take a mile.” Everybody knew what “niggas” like to do after they eat: sleep. Everybody knew that “niggas” couldn’t be on time; that’s why there was c.p.t. (colored people’s time). “Niggas don’t take care of nothin’.” “Niggas don’t stick together.” The list could go on and on. To varying degrees we accepted these statements as true. And, to varying degrees, we each made them true within ourselves because we believed them.

lives. They call us murderers, but we were not responsible for the twenty-eight brother inmates and nine hostages murdered at attica. They call us murderers, but we did not murder and wound over thirty unarmed Black students at Jackson State—or Southern State, either. They call us murderers, but we did not murder Martin Luther King, Jr., Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Nat Turner, James Chaney, and countless others. We did not murder, by shooting in the back, sixteen-year-old Rita Lloyd, eleven-year-old Rickie Bodden, or ten-year-old Clifford Glover. They call us murderers, but we do not control or enforce a system of racism and oppression that systematically murders Black and Third World people. Although Black people supposedly comprise about fifteen percent of the total amerikkkan population, at least sixty percent of murder victims are Black. For every pig that is killed in the so-called line of duty, there are at least fifty Black people murdered by the police.

trooper) was kidnapped on April 2, 1969, from our Black community and held on one million dollars’ ransom in the New York Panther 21 conspiracy case. He was acquitted on May 13, 1971, along with all the others, of 156 counts of conspiracy by a jury that took less than two hours to deliberate. Brother Squire was innocent. Yet he was kidnapped from his community and family. Over two years of his life was stolen, but they call us kidnappers. We did not kidnap the thousands of Brothers and Sisters held captive in amerika’s concentration camps. Ninety percent of the prison population in this country are Black and Third World people who can afford neither bail nor lawyers. They call us thieves and bandits. They say we steal. But it was not we who stole millions of Black people from the continent of Africa. We were robbed of our language, of our Gods, of our culture, of our human dignity, of our labor, and of our lives. They call us thieves, yet it is not we who rip off billions of dollars every year through tax evasions, illegal price fixing, embezzlement, consumer fraud, bribes, kickbacks, and swindles. They call us bandits, yet every time most Black people pick up our paychecks we are being robbed. Every time we walk into a store in our neighborhood we are being held up. And every time we pay our rent the landlord sticks a gun into our ribs. They call us thieves, but we did not rob and murder millions of Indians by ripping off their homeland, then call ourselves pioneers. They...

Prisons are a profitable business. They are a way of legally perpetuating slavery. In every state, more and more prisons are being built and even more are on the drawing board. Who are they for? They certainly aren’t planning to put white people in them. Prisons are part of this government’s genocidal war against Black and Third World people.

White people’s fear of Black people with guns will never cease to amaze me. Probably it’s because they think about what they would do were they in our place. Especially the police, who have done so much dirt to Black people—their guilty conscience tells them to be afraid. When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear.

Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.

Once you study and really get a good understanding of the way the system in the United States works, then you see, without a doubt, that the civil rights movement never had a chance of succeeding. White people, whether they are from the North or from the South, whether it was in 1960 or 1980, benefit from the oppression of Black people. Those who believe that the president or the vice-president and the congress and the supreme kourt run this country are sadly mistaken. The almighty dollar is king; those who have the most money control the country and, through campaign contributions, buy and sell presidents, congressmen, and judges, the ones who pass the laws and enforce the laws that benefit their benefactors. The rich have always used racism to maintain power. To hate someone, to discriminate against them, and to attack them because of their racial characteristics is one of the most primitive, reactionary, ignorant ways of thinking that exists. A war between the races would help nobody and free nobody and should be avoided at all costs. But a one-sided race war with Black people as the targets and white people shooting the guns is worse. We will be criminally negligent, however, if we do not deal with racism and racist violence, and if we do not prepare to defend ourselves against it.

Despite that, i continued saying the first thing that came into my head: that the u.s. was fighting communists because they wanted to take over everything. When someone asked me what communism was, i opened my mouth to answer, then realized i didn’t have the faintest idea. My image of a communist came from a cartoon. It was a spy with a black trench coat and a black hat pulled down over his face, slinking around corners. In school, we were taught that communists worked in salt mines, that they weren’t free, that everybody wore the same clothes, and that no one owned anything. The Africans rolled with laughter.

I never forgot that day. We’re taught at such an early age to be against the communists, yet most of us don’t have the faintest idea what communism is.

It’s got to be one of the most basic principles of living: always decide who your enemies are for yourself, and never let your enemies choose your enemies for you.

When we were sitting in this courtroom, during the jury selection process, i listened to judge Thompson tell you about the amerikan system of justice. He talked about the presumption of innocence; he talked about equality and justice. His words were like a beautiful

dream in a beautiful world. But i have been awaiting trial for two and one half years. And justice, in my eyesight, has not been the amerikan dream. It has been the amerikan nightmare. There was a time when i wanted to believe that there was justice in this country. But reality crashed through and shattered all my daydreams. While awaiting trial i have earned a Ph.D. in justice or, rather, the lack of it.

I sat next to a pregnant woman who was doing ninety days for taking a box of Pampers and watched on TV the pardoning of a president who had stolen millions of dollars and who had been responsible for the deaths of thousands of human beings. For what? For peace with honor? Nixon was pardoned without ever standing trial or being found guilty of a crime or spending one day in jail. Who else could commit some of the most horrendous, destructive crimes in history and get paid 200,000 tax dollars a year? Ford stated that he pardoned Nixon because Nixon’s family had suffered enough. Well, what about thousands of families whose sons gave their lives in Vietnam? And what about the millions of people who have been sentenced at birth to poverty, to live like animals and work like dogs. What about the families who have sons and daughters in prison, who cannot afford bail or even lawyers for their children? Where is justice for them? What kind of justice is this? Where the poor go to prison and the rich go free. Where witnesses are rented, bought, or bribed. Where evidence is made or manufactured. Where people are tried not because of any crimina...

During the voir dire process, we asked you about the word “militant.” There was a reason for that. In the late sixties and the early seventies, this country was in an upheaval. There was a strong people’s movement against the war, against racism, in the colleges, on the streets, and in the Black and Puerto Rican communities. This government, local police agencies, the FBI, and the CIA launched an all-out war against people they considered militants. We are only

finding out now, because of investigations into the FBI and the CIA, how extensive and how criminal their methods were and still are. In the same way that witches were burned in Salem, this government went on a witch-hunt for people they considered “militant.”

The idea of a Black Liberation Army emerged from conditions in Black communities: conditions of poverty, indecent housing, massive unemployment, poor medical care, and inferior education. The idea came about because Black people are not free or equal in this country. Because ninety percent of the men and women in this country’s prisons are Black and Third World. Because ten-year-old children are shot down in our streets. Because dope has saturated our communities, preying on the disillusionment and frustration of our children. The concept of the BLA arose because of the political, social, and economic oppression of Black people in this country. And where there is oppression, there will be resistance. The BLA is part of that resistance

movement. The Black Liberation Army stands for freedom and justice for all people.

It has never ceased to amaze me how so many people can be tricked into hating people who have never done

them any harm. You simply mention the word “communist” and a lot of these red, white, and blue fools are ready to kill.

To my momma, who has swallowed the amerikan dream and choked on it. To my momma, whose dreams have fought each other— and died. Who sees, but cannot bear to see. A volcano eating its own lava. To my momma, who couldn’t turn hell into paradise and blamed herself. Who has always seen reflected in her mirror an ugly duckling. To my momma, who makes no demands of anyone cause she don’t think she can afford to. Who thinks her money talks louder than her womanhood. To my butchfem momma, who has always taken care of business.

Who has never drifted hazily to sleep thinking, “he will take care of it.” Who has schemed so much she sometimes schemes against herself. 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. We have all been infected with a sickness that can be traced back to the auction block. You must not feel guilty for what has been done to us. Only the strong go crazy. The weak just go along. And what i thought was cruelty, I understand was fear that hands, stronger than yours, and whiter than yours, would strangle my young life into oblivion. Momma, i am proud of you.

I look at you and see the strength of our people. I have seen you struggle in the dark; the world beating on your back, dragging your catch back to our den. Pulling your pots and pans out to cook it. A mop in one hand. A pencil in the other, marking up my homework with your love. The injured have no blame. Let it fall on those who injure. Leave the past behind where it belongs— and come with me toward tomorrow. I love you mommy cause you are beautiful, ...