Maurice B. | Red Phoenix correspondent | New York–

“My life wasn’t beautiful and creative before I became politically active. My life was totally changed when I began to struggle.”

On Thursday, September 25, 2025, at the age of 78, Assata Shakur, born as JoAnne Deborah Byron, died in Havana, Cuba. Shakur‘s life was synonymous with struggle against oppression; she dedicated her time, her words, and her energy to building toward socialist revolution and the defeat of US imperialism.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Assata Shakur was a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, finding herself at the very forefront of the American class struggle, often culminating in openly violent confrontations with the police and other forces of capitalist state repression. For the Black and African-descendant working-class people in the United States, Shakur stands tall amongst figures like Harriet Tubman and fellow Panthers like Angela Davis as exemplary revolutionary women in the Black Radical Tradition. Shakur carried forward the struggle for those of us fighting today for a more just society, and we owe her a great deal for the successes that we’ve experienced in our lifetimes as well as for the practical lessons she provided us alongside her BPP and BLA comrades with their work for the working class.

Assata Shakur spent the last 41 years of her life in political asylum, and the last 12 of those years as the first woman to be added to the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Like so many of her Panther comrades and other fellow revolutionaries, Shakur was targeted for her political organizing and for the living example she provided to the Black youth and working class in America as a militant communist. For the fear of a “Black Messiah,” Shakur was threatened with life imprisonment, torture, and death. For the fear of a revolutionary and militant working class with hundreds of thousands of Assata Shakurs and Angela Davises and Kathleen Cleavers and Akua Njeris, Shakur’s extradition became a ceaseless demand of the capitalists and imperialists. In their tireless and ultimately fruitless efforts to “make an example” of Assata Shakur, they have only multiplied her adoration among the working class and raised the class consciousness of her Black brothers and sisters to see their true enemy: capitalist imperialism.

Assata Shakur has died, but her legacy only grows and will continue to do so in the eyes of the international working class and of African-descendant peoples in all nations. Wherever people are struggling against capitalism, racism, chauvinism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, Assata Shakur will be in their hearts and in their minds. Shakur showed us all what is asked of a revolutionary and what sacrifices we must be prepared to make to emancipate ourselves from the yoke of fascism, imperialist war, and reaction. Assata Shakur, through 78 years of life, through a life of loss, of struggle, and of revolution, showed the world the value of the revolutionary struggle and that true immortality belongs to those who give their flesh and bone to the people. “Glory goes to the ones not asking for it.”

Statement from Camilo Lazo, National Chair of the American Party of Labor–

It was a chilly evening, as nights in Cuba tend to be. You came, quite unannounced, to the Albergue Jose-Antonia Mella, to speak with members of that year’s Venceremos Brigade. There was no fanfare, no grand entrance, no banners waving or chants blaring out. Just a seasoned, experienced comrade coming to share thoughts and experiences, and offer advice and support, to young revolutionaries. 

And so, we met. You were gracious and kind. I’ll admit that I was ‘star-struck.’ I hope I didn’t show it, though I probably did.

Goodbye, Assata.

You were a legend and an inspiration to millions. I’m sure many are saying that now. But I wanted to say it myself. Just once. From me to you.

Categories: U.S. News, Women