Photo Courtesy of Adama Delphine Fawundu
Angela Bassett portraying Assata Shakur in a movie would be amazing and beneficial for the culture. I would love to see Ava DuVernay produce and direct this movie. The way she did When They See Us, I can see her really bring a bright light to Assata Shakur story.
Assata Shakur was member of the Black Liberation Army, who was convicted of the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. Shakur was also the target of the FBI’s COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) directed towards Black Liberation groups and activists.
Between 1973 and 1977, she was charged with murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery, and kidnapping in relation to the shootout and six other incidents. She was acquitted on three of the charges and three were dismissed. In 1977, she was convicted of the murder of Foerster and of seven other felonies related to the shootout.
While serving a life sentence for murder, she escaped from prison in 1979, later surfacing in Cuba in 1984 where she was granted political asylum.
Shakur has lived in Cuba since 1984, despite US government efforts to have her returned. The FBI has added her to its list of most-wanted terrorists as Joanne Deborah Chesimard
