She Escaped From Jail, Hid Out in Cuba for Decades

Assata Shakur, a Black liberation activist who was given political asylum in Cuba after her 1979 escape from a US prison where she'd been serving a life sentence for killing a police officer, has died at the age of 78. She was also the godmother to the late rapper Tupac Shakur. Born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, Shakur 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, per the AP. Shakur's daughter, Kakuya Shakur, also confirmed her mother's death in a Facebook post.

Shakur's case had long been a thorny issue in the fraught relations between the US and Cuba. American authorities, including President Trump during his first term in office, had demanded her return from the communist nation for decades. In her telling, and in the minds of her supporters, Shakur was being pursued for crimes she didn't commit, or which were justified. The FBI put Shakur on its list of "most wanted terrorists." A member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Shakur and two others were involved in a gunfight with troopers from the New Jersey State Police following a highway traffic stop on May 2, 1973. Trooper Werner Foerster was killed and another officer was wounded, while one of Shakur's companions was also killed.

Shakur, who was at the time wanted on several felonies, including bank robbery, fled but was eventually apprehended. She maintained in her writings from Cuba over the years that she didn't shoot anyone and had her hands in the air when she was wounded during the gunfire. Shakur was found guilty of murder, armed robbery, and other crimes in 1977 and was sentenced to life in prison, only to escape in November 1979. Members of the Black Liberation Army, posing as visitors, stormed the Clinton Correctional Facility for women in New York, took two guards hostage, and commandeered a prison van to break Shakur out.

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Shakur disappeared before eventually emerging in 1984 in Cuba, where Fidel Castro granted her asylum, according to the FBI. Shakur was the godmother to Tupac and is described by USA Today as a close friend of the famed rapper's mother, Afeni Shakur; some outlets have also labeled Assata Shakur as Tupac's "aunt" or "step-aunt." A companion who was also convicted in Foerster's killing, Sundiata Acoli, was granted parole in 2022. His attorneys had argued the then-octogenarian had been a model prisoner for nearly three decades and counseled other inmates.