Between Myth and Murder, Sitting with the Uncertainty of Assata Shakur

By: Richard Graveas, MA American History, PhD Candidate - September 30, 2025

I am ambivalent about Assata Shakur, and I think we should allow ourselves to sit with that discomfort. The late 1960s and 1970s were an era of political assassinations, street level confrontation, and government overreach that distorted many truths. In that climate, a Black radical could be both a symbol to some and a suspect to others. What is uncontested is this: Shakur was convicted in 1977 of murdering New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster after a stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, escaped custody in 1979, and later received asylum in Cuba where she lived until her death on September 25, 2025. She consistently maintained that she did not fire the fatal shots. These facts frame a debate that resists certainty and rewards humility (Washington Post, 2013, 2014, 2025).

Why do many believe Shakur could have been framed? You cannot make sense of that view without the public record of the era’s domestic intelligence abuses. The burglary of an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania in 1971 exposed COINTELPRO tactics that targeted civil rights and antiwar movements with infiltration and disinformation. A later Senate inquiry condemned those practices. The reporting and retrospectives are not a brief for Shakur’s innocence, but they do explain why a fair minded observer might doubt the fairness of some prosecutions from that period and remain open to the possibility of miscarriages of justice that disproportionately affected Black activists (Jackman, 2021).

Why do others believe she could in fact be guilty? You have to confront the violent edge of the underground in which she moved. Contemporary accounts in major outlets describe the Black Liberation Army as a clandestine organization that embraced armed struggle and was linked to fatal confrontations with law enforcement. Washington Post coverage recounts the stop on the Turnpike, the gunfire that followed, and the prosecution’s theory of the case. It also notes Shakur’s claim that her hands were raised when she was shot. None of that disappears because COINTELPRO existed, and none of it alone settles the moral questions for good. It does, however, ground the conclusion that an actual trooper died, another officer was wounded, and a jury returned a conviction that has withstood decades of scrutiny in courts and the court of public opinion alike (Washington Post, 2013, 2021, 2025).

The state’s response to Shakur turned her case into a symbol of its own. In 2013 the FBI named her the first woman on the Most Wanted Terrorists list and announced a combined reward of up to $2 million. That designation did not change the underlying conviction, but it formalized the political weight placed on her case for decades and kept her at the center of disputes over extradition and Cuba policy. The Wall Street Journal, in coverage of the U.S.–Cuba thaw, repeatedly noted Washington’s insistence that Havana return fugitives, including Joanne Chesimard, Shakur’s legal name. Whether you read that as overdue accountability or as a politicized pressure tactic, it shows how a single case became a proxy for larger fights about justice, race, and foreign policy (FBI, 2013, 2019; Wall Street Journal, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2017).

Here is where my ambivalence rests. The period after the murders of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy was volatile in ways that made radicalization more likely and constitutional violations by the state more tempting. It was a time when activists were surveilled, infiltrated, and discredited, and it was also a time when some militants embraced violence. That dual reality should temper absolutism. It leaves room to say that Shakur may have been railroaded, and also to say that membership in a formation that valorized armed confrontation makes claims of total innocence hard to accept without reservation. History gives us enough smoke to doubt, and enough fire to worry.

Until every relevant file is public and every credible account is reconciled, the honest thing to say is that we still do not know everything we should know. One day I hope the undisputed truth comes out. For now, humility is more responsible than mythmaking, whether hagiographic or punitive (Washington Post, 2021, 2025).

Holding both realities at once is not weakness. It is prudence. The historical record documents government misconduct that can erode confidence in prosecutions of Black radicals, and it documents real violence by underground groups of that era. In that space between myth and murder, certainty should be slow and evidence should come first (Washington Post, 2013, 2021, 2025; FBI, 2013).

References:

Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2013, May 2). Joanne Deborah Chesimard. Most Wanted Terrorists. FBI. https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/joanne-deborah-chesimard

Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2019, May 13). Joanne Chesimard first woman named to Most Wanted Terrorists list. FBI. https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/joanne-chesimard-first-woman-named-to-most-wanted-terrorist-list-050213

Jackman, T. (2021, September 1). The FBI break-in that exposed J. Edgar Hoover’s misdeeds to be honored with historical marker. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/09/01/fbi-break-in-cointelpro/

The Wall Street Journal. (2015, May 29). Cuba officially removed from U.S. State Sponsor of Terrorism list. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/cuba-officially-removed-from-u-s-state-sponsor-of-terrorism-list-1432916425

The Wall Street Journal. (2015, July 5). U.S.–Cuba policy: Where things stand now. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-cuba-policy-where-things-stand-now-1436125059

The Wall Street Journal. (2015, July 20). As embassies open, a further thaw faces hurdles in Congress. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-embassies-open-a-further-thaw-faces-hurdles-in-congress-1437424082

The Wall Street Journal. (2017, July 19). CNN and the resistance. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/cnn-and-the-resistance-1500508611

The Washington Post. (2013, May 8). Assata Shakur was convicted of murder. Is she a terrorist? The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/08/assata-shakur-was-convicted-of-murder-is-she-a-terrorist/

The Washington Post. (2014, December 20). Cuba still harbors one of America’s most wanted fugitives. What happens to Assata Shakur now? The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/20/cuba-still-harbors-one-of-americas-most-wanted-fugitives-what-happens-to-assata-shakur-now/

The Washington Post. (2025, September 26). Assata Shakur, Black Power militant who fled to Cuba, dies at 78. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2025/09/26/assata-shakur-dead/