* 1947 – Assata Shakur, American activist and criminal

** Assata Shakur ( née Joanne Chesimard ), a former member of Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, escapes from a New York prison to Cuba, where she remains under political asylum.

Assata Olugbala Shakur ( born July 16, 1947, as JoAnne Deborah Byron, married name Chesimard ) is an African-American activist and escaped convict who was a member of the Black Panther Party ( BPP ) and Black Liberation Army ( BLA ).

That same year she changed her name to Assata Shakur and joined the Black Liberation Army ( BLA ), " a politico-military organization, whose primary objective ( was ) to fight for the independence and self-determination of Afrikan people in the United States.

Specifically, documentary evidence suggests that Shakur was targeted by an investigation named CHESROB, which " attempted to hook former New York Panther Joanne Chesimard ( Assata Shakur ) to virtually every bank robbery or violent crime involving a black woman on the East Coast ".

On May 2, 1973, at about 12: 45 a. m., Assata Shakur, along with Zayd Malik Shakur ( born James F. Costan ) and Sundiata Acoli ( born Clark Squire ), was stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike in East Brunswick by State Trooper James Harper, backed up by Trooper Werner Foerster in a second patrol vehicle ( Car 820 ), for driving with a broken tail light.

Recordings of Trooper Harper calling the dispatcher were played at the trials of both Acoli and Assata Shakur.

" The stop occurred south of what was then the Turnpike Authority administration building at exit 9, the headquarters of Troop D. Zayd Shakur was driving the two-door vehicle, Assata Shakur was seated in the right front seat, and Acoli was in the right rear seat.

However, in the ensuing shootout, Trooper Foerster was shot twice in the head with his own gun and killed, Zayd Shakur was killed, and Assata Shakur and Trooper Harper were wounded.

At this point, Assata Shakur and Acoli were ordered to put their hands on their laps and not to move ; Harper said that Assata Shakur then reached down to the right of her right leg, pulled out a pistol, and shot him in the shoulder, after which he retreated to behind his vehicle.

Questioned by prosecutor C. Judson Hamlin, Harper said he saw Foerster shot just as Assata Shakur was felled by bullets from Harper's gun.

Acoli then drove the car ( a white Pontiac LeMans with Vermont license plates )— which contained Assata Shakur, who was wounded, and Zayd Shakur, who was dead or dying — down the road at milepost 78 across from Service Area 8-N ( the Joyce Kilmer Service Area ), where Assata Shakur was apprehended.

According to Palentchar, Assata Shakur then walked towards him from away with her bloody arms raised in surrender.

At the time of the shootout, Assata Shakur was a member of the Black Liberation Army ( BLA ) and no longer a member of the Black Panther Party.

According to a New Jersey Police spokesperson, Assata Shakur was on her way to a " new hideout in Philadelphia " and " heading ultimately for Washington " and a book in the vehicle contained a list of potential BLA targets.

Assata Shakur, with gunshot wounds in both arms and a shoulder was moved to Middlesex General Hospital, under " heavy guard ", and was reported to be in " serious condition "; Trooper Harper was wounded in the left shoulder, in " good " condition, and given a protective guard at the hospital.

Assata Shakur was interrogated and arraigned from her hospital bed, and her medical care during this period is often alleged to have been " substandard ".

Assata Shakur was transferred from Middlesex General Hospital in New Brunswick to Roosevelt Hospital in Edison after her lawyers obtained a court order from Judge John Bachman, and then transferred to Middlesex County Workhouse a few weeks later.

East Brunswick was also the site of the gunfight at Turnpike Exit 9 shortly after midnight on May 2, 1973, in which a car being driven by Zayd Malik Shakur ( born James F. Costan ), with Assata Shakur ( formerly JoAnne Chesimard ) and Sundiata Acoli ( born Clark Squire ) as passengers, was stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike State Trooper James Harper, backed up by Trooper Werner Foerster in a second patrol vehicle.

In another high-profile incident, Assata Shakur, Zayd Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were said to have opened fire on state troopers in New Jersey after being pulled over for a broken taillight.

In the 1980s, he was arrested on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ( RICO ) charges of bank robbery and aiding his sister, Assata Shakur, in her escape from prison on November 2, 1979.

The JTTF would later serve as the " coordinating body in the search for Assata and the renewed campaign to smash the BLA ", after her escape from prison.

Assata Shakur, in her autobiography, asserts

Following her capture, Assata Shakur was tried in six different criminal trials.

Assata Shakur was found guilty of the murder of both Foerster and her companion Zayd Shakur, but escaped prison in 1979 and eventually fled to Cuba and received political asylum.

Marilyn Jean Buck ( December 13, 1947 – August 3, 2010 ) was an American Marxist revolutionary, convict, and feminist poet, who was imprisoned for her participation in the 1979 prison escape of Assata Shakur, the 1981 Brinks robbery and the 1983 U. S. Senate bombing.

According to Cleaver and Katsiaficas, the FBI and local police " initiated a national search-and-destroy mission for suspected BLA members, collaborating in stakeouts that were the products of intensive political repression and counterintelligence campaigns like NEWKILL " and " attempted to tie Assata to every suspected action of the BLA involving a woman ".

" An individual's name change often coincides with a religious conversion ( Muhammad Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay and Louis Farrakhan changed his from Louis Eugene Walcott, for example ) or involvement with the black nationalist movement ( e. g., Amiri Baraka and Assata Shakur ).

Executive produced by Questlove and featuring significant contributions by J Dilla, ( who helmed many tracks except – " Cold Blooded ", " Geto Heaven Part II ", " A Song For Assata ", " Pop's Rap Part 3 ... All My Children " & the DJ Premier-produced track " The 6th Sense "), Like Water for Chocolate transpired to be a considerable commercial breakthrough for Common, earning the rapper his first gold record, and greatly expanding his fanbase among critics and listeners alike.

* In 1979 three members walked into the visitor ’ s center at the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women near Clinton, took two guards hostage, and freed Assata Shakur, a member of the Black Liberation Army.

Brown ( 1915 – 2009 ), attorney whose clients included Black Liberation Army member Assata Shakur, boxer Rubin " Hurricane " Carter and " Dr. X " physician Mario Jascalevich.

Shakur was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, on July 16, 1947, where she lived for three years with her parents and grandparents, Lula and Frank Hill.

Shakur then allegedly displayed a revolver and a struggle ensued, during which she was shot.

Shakur is alleged to have said that she was glad that she had been shot since now that she had experienced what it was like she was no longer afraid to be shot again.

In 1972, Shakur was the subject of a nationwide manhunt after the FBI alleged that she was the " revolutionary mother hen " of a Black Liberation Army cell that had conducted a " series of cold-blooded murders of New York City police officers ", including the " execution style murders " of New York Police Officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones on May 21, 1971 and Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie on January 28, 1972.

Shakur and others claim that she was targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO as a result of her involvement with these organizations.

In Congress, she advocated unsealing records pertaining to the CIA's role in assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the murder of Tupac Shakur and continued to criticize the Bush Administration over the 9 / 11 attacks.

According to Shakur, she was beaten and tortured during her incarceration in a number of different federal and state prisons.

Guy was a good friend of slain rapper Tupac Shakur, whom she met through her A Different World co-star Jada Pinkett Smith.

According to Shakur she had given him gifts of clothing, which he offered as proof of a relationship in an interview.

The assistant had even mistakenly lost the pager, but by the time she found it Shakur had grown wary of her, so he fired her.

" Shortly after the release of " Hit ' Em Up ", Evans went on the radio, denying that she had been with Shakur.

Despite initial critical cynicism of the program's concept, it quickly gained cult status and was praised for the quality of its production, witty and often cringe-induced humour ( one recalls a contestant's sobbing lament of the deaths of two icons she held dear-Diana, Princess of Wales, and Tupac Shakur ).

Wilkerson exhausted his final appeal to Judge Jan Krocker in February 2000, a dramatic scene involving community activist Njeri Shakur ( member of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement and the Allen Parkway Village Residents Council ) shouting at Judge Krocker led to a contempt charge against Shakur ; she served 30 days in the Harris County Jail albeit several demonstrations outside the Harris County Courthouse.

During recording, she also landed a role in John Singleton's 1993 film Poetic Justice starring pop singer Janet Jackson and hip-hop artist / actor Tupac Shakur.