Asa Shakur, the Black Liberation Activist in Cuba dies in 78

Asa Shakur, an active in the Black Liberation Army in Cuba, died for four decades, in Havana, 78.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cuba said in a statement on Friday that Shakur, also known as Joan Chessman, died on Thursday due to unlimited health conditions and “advanced age”.

She was on the list of wanted terrorists in the FBI for years after escaping in 1979 from a women’s prison in New Jersey, where she was serving a life imprisonment after being convicted of killing in an exchange of fire killed a soldier from New Jersey and activists.

Shakur maintained her innocence and reappeared in Cuba in 1984, when she was granted asylum by former President Fidel Castro.

Shakur Joan Deborah Berron was born in July 1947 in New York City and raised between the city and Welmangton, North Carolina. It was the step of the aunt and the car of the late rapper Toubak Shakur.

She participated in the political activity of black Americans while she was in the college, first with the Black Party, a group that prefers the radical resistance of racism in the United States, advanced schools and other social services for black people.

The movement was widely cleared by the FBI, which considered it a threat to the United States. Shakur also joined the most radical black liberation army, whose members are of the former black leopards.

Shakur was traveling with his fellow activists in 1973 when their car officers were arrested by New Jersey officers. This was followed by an exchange of fire that killed state soldiers, Verner Forster, and his colleague, activist Zaid Malik Shakur. Asa Shakur was also injured in the shooting.

She was arrested and tried to death Forster, but she denied shooting him and said that her trial in front of a fully white jury was unfair.

I told NBC News in 1998 interview She was photographed in Havana that she escaped because she was afraid of her life and that she would not receive justice “in the United States.

Its exile was in Cuba among many thorny issues between the Communist Island and the United States.

Shakur was the first woman to be added to the list of wanted terrorists in the FBI. The agency and New Jersey provided a $ 1 million reward for the information that leads to its arrest.

She was celebrated in music bearing her name in songs, including the 1998 song “Non -stop rebel” By hip hop the general enemy group andSong for Assata“By the joint rapper.

“Words cannot describe the depth of the loss I feel at this time.”.