‘Hands Off Assata’ meeting held

A community teach-in, “International Hands Off Assata Day,” was held in Harlem’s St. Mary’s Church on July 16, the 58th birthday of Black revolutionary Assata Shakur. A former member of the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army, Shakur has lived in socialist Cuba since 1984 after escaping from a New Jersey prison in 1979.

Assata Shakur

In May, New Jersey state officials and the U.S. government placed a $1-million bounty on Shakur’s head and added her to the FBI’s most wanted list. The state convicted Shakur, formerly known as Joanne Chesimard, on a first-degree murder charge in the killing of a white state trooper in the late 1970s during a shoot-out on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Michael Tarif Warren, July 16.

Speaker after speaker at the teach-in stated that Shakur is a beloved freedom fighter and should be viewed as a political prisoner in exile. The program also paid tribute to other political prisoners like the Cuban 5, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Sundiata Acoli, Marilyn Buck, the MOVE 9, Ruchell Magee, Hugo Pinell and the many others languishing in U.S. jails and prisons. Participants at the meeting also praised the Cuban revolution for its heroism, and especially for its role in keeping Shakur safe from the clutches of a racist U.S. government.

Speakers included Iyaluua Ferguson, a leader of the Jericho Movement in support of U.S. political prisoners; Rosemari Mealy, a former Black Panther and a long-time Cuban support activist; Pro-Libertad representative Frank Velgara; and movement lawyers Joan Gibbs and Michael Tarif Warren.

The meeting also featured the films “Mission Against Terror,” on the case of the Cuban 5, and “Eyes of the Rainbow,” an interview with Shakur in Cuba.

Members of the New York Hands off Assata Coalition chaired the meeting and told the audience how to get involved in the struggle to challenge the criminal bounty and to win total amnesty for Shakur. For more information, go to www. handsoffassata.org or call (718) 303-7037.