‘Hands Off Assata’ meeting held
By
Monica Moorehead
Harlem, N.Y.
Published Jul 23, 2005 7:40 PM
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.
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.
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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.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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