Assata Shakur, an activist with the Black Liberation Army exiled in Cuba for four decades, has died in Havana, aged 78.<\/p>\n
Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard, died Thursday of unspecified health conditions and “advanced age”, Cuba’s foreign affairs ministry said in a statement on Friday.<\/p>\n
She had been on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list for years after she escaped in 1979 from a New Jersey women’s prison, where she was serving a life sentence following her murder conviction in a shootout that killed a New Jersey state trooper and a fellow activists.<\/p>\n
Shakur maintained her innocence and reappeared in Cuba in 1984 where she was granted asylum by former president Fidel Castro.<\/p>\n
Shakur was born JoAnne Deborah Byron in July 1947 in New York City and was raised between the city and Wilmington, North Carolina. She was the step-aunt and godmother of the late rapper Tupac Shakur. <\/p>\n
She became involved in political activism for black Americans while in college, first with the Black Panther Party, a group that favoured radical resistance to racism in the United States and developed schools and other social services for black people.<\/p>\n
The movement was heavily surveilled by the FBI, which considered it a threat to the US. Shakur also joined the more radical Black Liberation Army whose members consisted of former Black Panthers.<\/p>\n
Shakur was travelling with fellow activists in 1973 when their car was stopped by New Jersey officers. A shootout ensued which killed state trooper Werner Foerster and fellow activist Zayd Malik Shakur. Assata Shakur was also injured in the shootout.<\/p>\n
She was arrested and tried for Foerster’s death but she denied shooting him and said her trial in front of an all-white jury was unfair.<\/p>\n