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A week after the Cuba visit of U.S. President Barack Obama, Angela Davis sat down to discuss the one issue that was not raised during his visit: the fate of the legendary Black activist Assata Shakur, who currently has political asylum in Cuba.
Assata was controversially convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper during a shootout that left one of her fellow activists dead on May 2, 1973.
Shot twice during the incident, the radical Black activist escaped from jail and fled to Cuba. Ever since, Assata has proclaimed her innocence, referring to the trial as a form of “legal lynching.”
Davis, a former member of the Black Panther Party, discussed her decades long support for Assata and what improved U.S-Cuba relations could mean for the activist, who the U.S. government designate as “one of the 10 most dangerous terrorists in the country."
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“Of course, as there are new openings with respect to Cuba, we welcome the end of the embargo, the blockade, but at the same time we have to be attentive to what this might mean for Assata, given that there is a $2 million reward on her head,” Davis said.
The former Black Panther drew parallels between Shakur and the TV drama Madam Secretary, in which an Assata-like character is approached by the secretary of state, who invites her back to the United States after telling her she has been wrongly prosecuted.
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“Assata has never seen her grandchildren. It’s horrendous, the extent to which the repression associated with the era of the late 1960s and 1970s continues to this day,” said Davis.
“Vast numbers of people are still behind bars from that era, members of the Black Panther Party—Mondo we Langa, Ed Rice. My co-defendant, Ruchell Magee, has been in prison for over 50 years. “
And Davis is convinced that such cases require a radical response. “ I think that when we put all of these things together, they create a kind of invitation for increased radical activism for trying to resolve these issues that have been decades in the making.”
Davis' comments follow demands from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christia, who is calling for the extradition of Assata to the U.S. as part of the thawing of relations between the two countries.
But the Cuban government has assured supporters of Assata that Havana has no intention of turning her over to U.S. authorities. In March 2015, Cuba's Deputy Director for American Affairs, Gustavo Machin, said such a move is completely "off the table"
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Angela Davis is currently a professor emeritus at University of California, Santa Cruz. Her latest book is titled "Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement."
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