Born: 14 July 1947 · Died: 25 September 2025 · Age: 78
Quick facts
Date of birth14 July 1947
Date of death25 September 2025
Age at death78
NationalityAmerican
BirthplaceNew York City, United States
Editor's Take:
Assata Shakur remains one of the most divisive figures in modern American history. To supporters she was a political prisoner who resisted a racist system. To law enforcement she was a convicted killer who escaped justice. The 1973 roadside shootout left a police officer dead and her badly wounded. After breaking out of prison she reached Cuba, which refused repeated US requests to return her. Her memoir became a key text for later activists. She died in Havana in 2025 after more than four decades as a fugitive.
Key Milestones
1977: Convicted of the murder of a New Jersey state trooper
1979: Escapes from prison
1987: Publishes her autobiography Assata
2013: Placed on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list
Assata Olugbala Shakur ( ə-SAH-tə shə-KOOR; born JoAnne Deborah Byron, July 16, 1947 – September 25, 2025) was a Black American political activist, revolutionary, and fugitive who was a member of the Black Panther Party, and later the Black Liberation Army.
