From Exile

I am currently reading a book by Holly Morris titled Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for Women Who Are Changing the World. I’m just getting started with the book, but am already enjoying it very much. Here’s a bit from the synopsis:

After years of working behind a desk, Holly Morris had finally had enough. So she quit her job and set out to prove that adventure is not just a vacation style but a philosophy of living and to find like-minded, risk-taking women around the globe. With modest backing, a small television crew, her spirited producer-mother, Jeannie, and a whole lot of chutzpah, Morris tracked down artists, activists, and politicos-women of action who are changing the rules and sometimes the world around them.

In the first chapter, Morris travels around Cuba interviewing women rap groups, filmakers, and a Santera. But the most interesting interview to me was the one with Assata Shakur.

I’ll claim my own ignorance in not knowing who Assata Shakur was before reading this book. So, in case anyone else is like me, here’s a bit about her from Wikipedia:

Assata Olugbala Shakur (born July 16, 1947 as JoAnne Deborah Byron, married name Chesimard) is an African-American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA). From 1971 to 1973, Shakur was accused of several crimes, of which she would never be convicted, and made the subject of a multi-state manhunt. In May 1973, Shakur was involved in a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, during which New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and BLA member Zayd Malik Shakur were killed and Shakur and Trooper James Harper were wounded. In 1977, she was convicted of the first-degree murder of Foerster and of seven other felonies related to the shootout. Between 1973 and 1977, Shakur was indicted in relation to six other alleged criminal incidents-charged with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery, and kidnapping-resulting in three acquittals and three dismissals.

Shakur was then incarcerated in several facilities, where her treatment drew criticism from some human rights groups. She escaped from prison in 1979 and has been living in Cuba with political asylum since 1984. Since May 2, 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has classified her as a “domestic terrorist” and offered a $1 million reward for assistance in her capture. Attempts to extradite her have resulted in letters to the pope and a Congressional resolution. Shakur was the aunt of hip hop artist Tupac Shakur (the sister of his stepfather, Mutulu Shakur), and her life has been portrayed in literature, film, and song.

After living in exile for 24 years, here’s what Assata told Morris she has learned about “the struggle”:

“One of the things that has been especially good for me has been to broaden the idea of struggle. In the sixties there was this idea that we were supposed to be revolutionary – very serious,” she says, making a mock grimace. “You were supposed to just talk at people, not to people. You know, so many people that I met in the sixties who were locked into that style of struggle are looking and saying, first of all, it was boring. You know? And we do not have a right, in the name of justice, to bore people to death.”

She pauses for a moment of consideration, then continues. “It’s not fair to ignore people and say that you’re struggling for people. We have a duty to make what we are doing a people activity, which means acting like people, which means being concerned about people, which means including children. I think that’s one of the more important lessons that I’ve learned in my life.”