HAVANA, CUBA – Assata Shakur, one of the most iconic and contentious figures in the modern Black liberation movement, has died. A former member of the Black Liberation Army who lived for decades in political asylum in Cuba, Shakur’s passing was confirmed by close associates and family, citing health complications. She was 76.

Shakur’s life was a tapestry of radical activism, fierce government opposition, and enduring symbolism. To her supporters, she is a revolutionary icon, a wrongfully convicted political prisoner who survived state persecution. To law enforcement, particularly in the United States, she remained a fugitive convicted of murdering a New Jersey state trooper.

Born Joanne Deborah Byron in 1947, her political consciousness was shaped by the turbulent 1960s and 70s. She changed her name to Assata Olugbala Shakur, meaning “She who struggles” and “The thankful,” solidifying her identity with the Black Power and Pan-Africanist movements. As a member of the Black Panther Party and later the Black Liberation Army, she became a primary target of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, which sought to disrupt and neutralize Black nationalist organizations.

The event that defined her life occurred on the New Jersey Turnpike on May 2, 1973. A shootout ensued during a traffic stop, resulting in the death of Trooper Werner Foerster and serious injuries to Shakur and another activist, Zayd Malik Shakur, who was also killed. Shakur was convicted of first-degree murder in 1977, a verdict she and her advocates have always denounced as a legal lynching, pointing to a trial riddled with procedural controversies and alleged evidence tampering.

In 1979, in a daring operation, members of the Black Liberation Army broke Shakur out of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women. She subsequently surfaced in Cuba in 1984, where she was granted political asylum by the government of Fidel Castro, in accordance with Cuba’s long-standing practice of offering refuge to U.S. political dissidents.

For over three decades, she lived in Havana, a spectral presence in the cold war between the U.S. and Cuba. In 2005, the FBI placed her on its Most Wanted Terrorists list, increasing the reward for her capture to $2 million. Despite this, she remained an influential, if distant, figure, her autobiography, Assata: An Autobiography, serving as a foundational text for new generations of activists involved in movements like Black Lives Matter.

Her death marks the closing of a dramatic chapter in the history of the Black freedom struggle. It reopens complex questions about justice, resistance, and the long shadow of America’s racial conflicts. While U.S. authorities may close a long-standing fugitive case, for many across the African diaspora, Assata Shakur’s legacy as a resilient voice against oppression is cemented. She is survived by her daughter and a global community who see in her story the unyielding demand for Black liberation.