* 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 testified that she was on her way to Baltimore for a job as a bar waitress.

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 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.

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.

" 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 ).

Article also available from Assata Shakur's site.

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.

In 1979, Joanne Chesimard also known as Assata Shakur, who had been convicted of killing a policeman, and a leading member of the Black Liberation Army ( BLA ), escaped from a New Jersey prison with help from a number of associates outside.

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.

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.

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 ".

Between 1971 and 1973, Shakur was accused of several crimes 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.

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 prisons, where her treatment drew criticism from some human rights groups.

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 was arrested for the first time in 1967 with 100 other BMCC students, on charges of trespassing.

On April 6, 1971, Shakur was shot in the stomach during a struggle with a guest at the Statler Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan and was arrested on a string of charges.

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.

Following an August 23, 1971, bank robbery in Queens, Shakur was sought for questioning, and a photograph of a woman ( who was later alleged to be Shakur ) with thick rimmed black glasses, a high hairdo pulled tightly over her head, and a steadily pointed gun became ubiquitous in banks and full page print ads paid for by the New York Clearing House Association.

On December 21, 1971, Shakur was named as one of four suspects by New York City police in a hand grenade attack that destroyed a police car and slightly injured two patrolmen in Maspeth, Queens ; a 13-state alarm was issued three days after the attack when a witness identified Shakur and Andrew Jackson from FBI photographs.

Shakur was one of those wanted for questioning for wounding a police officer attempting to serve a traffic summons in Brooklyn on January 26, 1972.