Top 100 Assata Shakur Quotes
#1. One of the worst cases is that of ASSATA SHAKUR, who spent over twenty months in solitary confinement in two separate men's prisons subject to conditions totally unbefitting any prisoner.
Assata Shakur
#2. I think anybody who is honestly struggling against racism must struggle against imperialism and vice versa.
Assata Shakur
#3. I thought about it all the way home. Of all the things I had wanted to be when i was a little girl, a revolutionary certainly wasn't one of them.
Assata Shakur
#4. Many of the sisters were Black and poor and from D.C., where every crime is a violation of a federal statute. They were beautiful sisters, serving outrageous sentences for minor offenses.
Assata Shakur
#5. I've always been a student of different ways of looking at the world, different religions. That's been part of my survival mechanism, and also part of my curiosity as a person.
Assata Shakur
#6. What most impressed me about Cuba was the optimism.
Assata Shakur
#7. The abnormal, the sick, the vicious have become more and more interwoven into the violent culture of the United States. Into the way news is seen, into the way movies are seen.
Assata Shakur
#8. I worked, studied, mothered and continued to be an activist. I found that Cuba was much different from the US; its government was genuinely trying to erase racism.
Assata Shakur
#9. People are tried and convicted in the newspapers and on television before they ever see a courtroom.
Assata Shakur
#10. I believe in self-defense and self-determination for Africans and other oppressed people in America.
Assata Shakur
#11. I think that any time anybody gets rid of oppression, intervention, exploitation, cruelty - that's positive.
Assata Shakur
#12. When i heard on the radio that the New York Panthers had been busted, i was furious. The so-called conspiracy charges were so stupid that even a fool could see through them. The police actually had the audacity to charge them with plotting to blow up the flowers in the Botanical Garden.
Assata Shakur
#13. The US has attacked countries like Grenada, Panama, Libya ... the list of victims of US terrorism is almost infinite. And the US government's participation in torture, whether in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile ... is well-documented and widely known.
Assata Shakur
#14. I think that one of the great things that the Cuban revolution has done is preserve history.
Assata Shakur
#15. I Believe In The Fire Of Love And The Sweat Of Truth
Assata Shakur
#16. Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.
Assata Shakur
#17. The world, in spite of oppression, is a beautiful place.
Assata Shakur
#18. The only thing was that, once the $100,000 cash bail was raised, pig judge Murtagh refused to release him or any of the others. We were furious and helpless.
Assata Shakur
#19. It seemed that most women, because they had been caught, gave up on the movement and were just trying to pass the time until they could be released. Men in prison struggled to maintain their pride, including their manhood, because that is all they had left after everything had been taken away.
Assata Shakur
#20. It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Assata Shakur
#21. I think that the greatest betrayal that a revolutionary can participate in is to become like the people you are struggling against. To become like your persecutors. I think that is a betrayal and a sin.
Assata Shakur
#22. People ask me if I miss the States. I miss African Americans. But not the U.S. government or all the things they put me through. I miss African American culture, our speech, dance and cooking.
Assata Shakur
#23. All you have to do is ask yourselves, who controls the government? And who are the victims of that control?
Assata Shakur
#24. My experience in the United States was living in a society that was very much at war with itself, that was very alienated. People felt not part of a community, but like isolated units that were afraid of interaction, of contact, that were lonely.
Assata Shakur
#25. I decided on Assata Olugbala Shakur. Assata means "She who struggles," Olugbala means "Love for the people," and i took the name Shakur out of respect for Zayd and Zayd's family. Shakur means "the thankful.
Assata Shakur
#26. I really prefer to be kind of anonymous. Because when people know your whole history, they have a tendency to relate to you differently and maybe put you up on a pedestal. I want people to just be normal with me. I just want to live my life.
Assata Shakur
#27. I couldn't see how we could seriously struggle without having a strong sense of collectivity, without being responsible FOR each other and TO each other.
Assata Shakur
#28. No one i knew had ever heard of Ronald Myers, and no one understood why he had been targeted for this particular frame-up. In fact, i wondered if he was some kind of plant. It all seemed so strange.
Assata Shakur
#29. I must confess that waltzes do not move me, I guess I hummed the blues too early, and spent too many midnights out wailing to the rain.
Assata Shakur
#30. I wondered how all those people in the states who tried to sound tough, saying that the u.s. should go in here, bomb there, take over this, attack that, would feel if they knew that they were indirectly responsible for babies being burned to death.
Assata Shakur
#31. At this time I'd like to say a few words especially to my sisters: SISTERS. BLACK PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE FREE UNLESS BLACK WOMEN PARTICIPATE IN EVERY ASPECT OF OUR STRUGGLE, ON EVERY LEVEL OF OUR STRUGGLE.
Assata Shakur
#32. Love is contraband in Hell, cause love is an acid that eats away bars.
Assata Shakur
#33. We do not have the right in the name of social justice to bore anyone to death.
Assata Shakur
#34. We had to learn that we're beautiful. We had to relearn something forcefully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the importance of coming together and being active
Assata Shakur
#35. I believe in life. And I have seen the death parade
Assata Shakur
#36. I advocate revolutionary changes ... an end to capitalist exploitation, the abolition of racist policies, the eradication of sexism and the elimination of political repression. If that is a crime, then I am totally guilty
Assata Shakur
#37. There is a down side to everything if you don't understand what the consequences of what you are saying in your music you could possibly end up getting yourself killed or hurting other people because of your carelessness.
Assata Shakur
#38. I have advocated and I still advocate revolutionary change
Assata Shakur
#39. Tourism has affected Cuba, because tourists come and they bring racist, sexist ideas. They bring a whole vision that there are rich people all over the world and that's the way it should be.
Assata Shakur
#40. No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.
Assata Shakur
#41. I miss friends and family. If it weren't for visits from old friends and other African Americans I meet who come to Cuba, I'd probably be in some kind of time warp.
Assata Shakur
#42. If the U.S. succeeds in destroying the revolution, my status will be like that of most Cubans: I'll be up a creek without a paddle. It will be devastating for people worldwide who believe in justice.
Assata Shakur
#43. They refused to let him examine me unless a white doctor, hired by the state, was present, and for the report to the judge, the white doctor had to examine me.
Assata Shakur
#44. The government recognized immediately that Rap music has enormous revolutionary potential and politicians immediately came together to end it.
Assata Shakur
#45. In my case, spirituality has been important to me because at periods in my life there's been very little else that I've had going. I've actually needed to call on, to feel the forces of good in this universe to be able to survive.
Assata Shakur
#46. Hip Hop can be a very effective way to reach young people and teach them about current political and social issues.
Assata Shakur
#47. There's something nice about being able to go to sleep at night saying "You know, tomorrow I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that ... " I think that being an activist on this planet is a privilege and a pleasure.
Assata Shakur
#48. I'm truly blessed, because many of my friends come to Cuba. They like it here-they can relax and not worry about drive-by shootings or getting raped.
Assata Shakur
#49. When you go through all your life processing and abusing your hair so it will look like the hair of another race of people then you are making a statement and the statement is clear
Assata Shakur
#50. To avoid being manhandled, as soon as the judge said, "Remove the defendant from the courtroom," i would say, "The defendant will remove herself." Most of the time it worked, but one day the marshals were so gung ho they jumped on me and started brutalizing me in open kourt.
Assata Shakur
#51. The US government's most acute fear is that other countries are going to follow the Cuban example. They want everybody to know that if you follow this example we will attack you in every way that we can.
Assata Shakur
#52. I stay connected in my head. I'm spiritually and psychologically connected to African-Americans. They are my people, and that will never change.
Assata Shakur
#53. Peace is a rare gift. Peace of mind, peaceful sleeps, and peaceful spirits are all luxuries that few rebels can ever afford.
Assata Shakur
#54. One sticks his fingers in my eyes. I don't know what he has on his fingertips, but whatever it is burns like hell. I think I am gonna be blind forever. He says he will keep doing it until i am completely blind.
Assata Shakur
#55. And it is that one percent, the heads of large corporations, who control the policies of news media and determine what you and I hear on radio, read in the newspapers, see on television. It is more important for us to think about where the media gets its information.
Assata Shakur
#57. They went up against white mobs, water hoses, vicious dogs, the Ku Klux Klan, trigger-happy nightstick-wielding police, armed only with their belief in justice and their desire for freedom.
Assata Shakur
#58. I'm not quite sure what freedom is, but I know damn well what it ain't.
Assata Shakur
#59. The U. S. is becoming more hostile to Black people and other people of color. Racism is running rampant and xenophobia is on the rise
Assata Shakur
#60. I'm crafting a vision of my life that involves creativity. And Cuban society allows me to do this. I know it's harder in the U.S. where so many people are just grateful to have a job.
Assata Shakur
#61. A lot of contemporary American culture makes its way to this county. Cuba is not some gray, isolated backwater. This is a happening place.
Assata Shakur
#62. Eventually became convinced that the Cuban government was completely committed to eliminating all forms of racism. There were no racist institutions, structures, or organizations, and i understood how the Cuban economic system undermined rather than fed racism.
Assata Shakur
#63. Usually, after a disagreement, they suggested i read this or that, often Marx, Lenin, or Engels. I preferred Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il Sung, Che, or Fidel, but i ended up having to get into Marx and Lenin just to understand a lot of the speeches and stuff Huey Newton was putting out.
Assata Shakur
#64. We found out later that a lone Black juror had refused to convict us. He had heard us.
Assata Shakur
#65. I think that in order to struggle you have to be creative. In my life, creativity has been something that has sustained me; it awoke my spiritual struggle.
Assata Shakur
#66. At the time, Alcatraz had been taken over by Native Americans who were protesting against a long series of broken treaties, genocidal policies, and racist exploitation.
Assata Shakur
#67. Everything you love
is from a different world.
Hungry,
you turn your nose up
at my peas and rice.
Assata Shakur
#68. My life wasn't beautiful and creative before I became politically active. My life was totally changed when I began to struggle.
Assata Shakur
#69. Imperialism is the underlying motor of racism. The underlying reason that racism keeps on being promoted in all of its various forms.
Assata Shakur
#70. Part of being a revolutionary is creating a vision that is more humane. That is more fun, too. That is more loving. It's really working to create something beautiful.
Assata Shakur
#71. My fantasy of Cuba was that everybody was going to be going around looking like Fidel, with green uniforms - and it was very different from my vision of how Cuba was going to be.
Assata Shakur
#72. I really wanted to know what happens in a place that is trying to build socialism, that's trying to construct some form of social justice. That's trying to feed people, to make health care and education a right.
Assata Shakur
#73. The first part of planning is to believe that you can put that plan into practise.
Assata Shakur
#74. That was one of the things that always happened to me after long periods of solitary confinement: i would forget how to talk.
Assata Shakur
#75. If we are not committed to saving this earth we will be buying designer air filters and gas masks with little Nike swishes on them.
Assata Shakur
#76. Freedom! you askin me about freedom. I'll be honest with you. I know a whole more about what freedom isn't than about what it is, 'cause I've never been free. I can only share my vision with you of the future, about what freedom is.
Assata Shakur
#77. I think that spirituality is important for all people to develop. I don't mean there necessarily has to be a religious aspect to spirituality. Some people are spiritual in a religious way, other people are spiritual in their work and in their art and in their treatment of other people.
Assata Shakur
#78. The people who are running this planet are insane - they are literally destroying it. I don't know where they think they're gonna drink water, breathe air.
Assata Shakur
#79. How lovely it is to live with a sense of community. To live where you can drop in the street and a million people will come and help you.
Assata Shakur
#80. Like all other Black revolutionaries, Amerika is trying to lynch me.
Assata Shakur
#81. I think that, like many sisters, I was raised to be a Superwoman. I am a serious woman, and I want to be taken seriously.
Assata Shakur
#83. A poster of the massacre at My Lai, picturing women and children lying clumped together in a heap, their bodies riddled with bullets, hung on my wall as a daily reminder of the brutality in the world.
Assata Shakur
#84. We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice.
Assata Shakur
#85. People come telling the truth. When I ask how thing are in the States, they don't give me the okeydoke. They say, "Honey, things are hard." It reminds me I have to keep struggling.
Assata Shakur
#86. Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.
Assata Shakur
#87. Every time we went to kourt the judge made a point of reading into the record that i had refused to stand up for him. He was one of those racist white dogs who really believed he was massa.
Assata Shakur
#88. The real reason Cuba poses a threat has nothing to do with my being here or anyone else being here. It's because Cuba is an example of a country that is actively fighting against imperialist domination and insists on its own right to self-determination and sovereignty.
Assata Shakur
#89. I was sentenced to life plus 30 years by an all-White jury. What I saw in prison was wall-to-wall Black flesh in chains. Women caged in cells. But we're the terrorists. It just doesn't make sense.
Assata Shakur
#90. Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory.
Assata Shakur
#91. When the judge learned i was sick and unable to come to kourt, he had a fit. He acted like i had gotten sick just to delay the trial.
Assata Shakur
#92. I had grown up believing the slaves hadn't fought back. I remember feeling ashamed when they talked about slavery in school.
Assata Shakur
#93. were alive and we were excited and we believed that we were going to be free someday.
Assata Shakur
#94. The death penalty is used in such a blatantly racist way in the United States. There is no way that can be defended under any kind of definition of justice by anybody.
Assata Shakur
#95. In the long run, the people are our only appeal. The only ones who can free us are ourselves.
Assata Shakur
#96. I've tried as much as possible to avoid the standard nine-to-five thing. I've tried to organize my life so that I can move around, change the rhythm and the tempo.
Assata Shakur
#97. Schools in amerika are interested in brainwashing people with amerikanism, giving them a little bit of education, and training them in skills needed to fill the positions the capitalist system requires. As long as we expect amerika's schools to educate us, we will remain ignorant.
Assata Shakur
#98. I was taken to Elmhurst Hospital in a motorcade. It looked to me like a million police cars buzzing around the vehicle in which i, a woman in labor, was riding. And they all followed. Into Elmhurst Hospital and up to the delivery room. They surrounded the hospital.
Assata Shakur
#99. Cuba has its own moral system and priorities. That's what keeps it going, the belief that the country can control its own destiny.
Assata Shakur
#100. Constructive criticism and self-criticism are extremely important for any revolutionary organization. Without them, people tend to drown in their mistakes, not learn from them.
Assata Shakur
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