Assata Shakur, a Black liberation activist who was given political asylum in Cuba after her 1979 escape from a U.S. prison where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a police officer, has died, her daughter and the Cuban government said.
Shakur, who was born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, died Thursday in the capital city of Havana due to “health conditions and advanced age,” Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Shakur’s daughter, Kakuya Shakur, confirmed her mother’s death in a Facebook post.
A member of Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Shakur had long been emblematic of the fraught relations between the U.S. and Cuba. American authorities, including President Donald Trump during his first term, had demanded her return from the communist nation for decades.
The FBI put Shakur on its list of “ most wanted terrorists,” but, in her telling — and in the minds of her supporters — she was pursued for crimes she didn’t commit or that were justified.
From police shootout to prison break
