Assata Shakur born as JoAnne Deborah Byron in 1947 was raised in New York and North Carolina.
Her activism was profoundly influenced by Black Nationalist organizations during her college years in New York.
Shakur became involved in various movements including student rights anti-Vietnam war and black liberation.
She changed her name in 1971 adopting a name that reflected her struggle and love for people.
Shakur joined the Black Panther Party in 1970 and later the Black Liberation Army. In 1973 she was arrested and convicted of murder following a shootout with police.
In 1979, Shakur escaped prison and fled to Cuba where she was granted political asylum.
Despite her fugitive status and being placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list in 2013 Shakur’s life and struggle continue to be an inspiration to many as seen in various songs documentaries and literary works dedicated to her story.
Best Assata Shakur Quotes
Only the strong go crazy. The weak just go along. ~ Assata Shakur.
We are pregnant with freedom. ~ Assata Shakur.
I have advocated and I still advocate revolutionary change. ~ Assata Shakur.
The first part of planning is to believe that you can put that plan into practise. ~ Assata Shakur.
My life wasn’t beautiful and creative before I became politically active. My life was totally changed when I began to struggle. ~ Assata Shakur.
I can’t do nothin except try to find cloud nine. ~ Assata Shakur.
We’re living in a very tricky world, and unless we become analytical and expose the tricknology, people will become sucked into that. It is very easy, it is very, very easy. ~ Assata Shakur.
Constructive criticism and self-criticism are extremely important for any revolutionary organization. Without them, people tend to drown in their mistakes, not learn from them. ~ Assata Shakur.
We do not have the right in the name of social justice to bore anyone to death. ~ Assata Shakur.
I have never really understood exactly what a liberal is, though, since I have heard liberals express every conceivable opinion on every conceivable subject. ~ Assata Shakur.
The death penalty is used in such a blatantly racist way in the United States. There is no way that can be defended under any kind of definition of justice by anybody. ~ Assata Shakur.
In the long run, the people are our only appeal. The only ones who can free us are ourselves. ~ Assata Shakur.
I believe in living, I believe in birth, I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth and I believe that a lost ship, steered by tired, sea sick sailors, can still be guided home to port. ~ Assata Shakur.
It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us. ~ Assata Shakur.
We need to be weapons of mass construction, weapons of mass love. It’s not enough just to change the system. We need to change ourselves. ~ Assata Shakur.
To me it was a miracle of all miracles. And deeply spiritual. The odds against this baby being conceived were so great it boggled my mind. And yet it was happening. It seemed so right, so beautiful, in surroundings that were so ugly. ~ Assata Shakur.
People are tried and convicted in the newspapers and on television before they ever see a courtroom. ~ Assata Shakur.
I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless, robots who protect them and their property. ~ Assata Shakur.
Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is. ~ Assata Shakur.
Being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression, otherwise I would have been free to be so much more. ~ Assata Shakur.
Top Assata Shakur Quotes
Hip Hop can be a very effective way to reach young people and teach them about current political and social issues. ~ Assata Shakur.
Love is contraband in Hell, cause love is an acid that eats away bars. ~ Assata Shakur.
The methods of peaceful protests are not capable of being effective, because in reality most people pay little attention to things that are not abrasive. ~ Assata Shakur.
I believe in self-defense and self-determination for Africans and other oppressed people in America. ~ Assata Shakur.
I think that, like many sisters, I was raised to be a Superwoman. I am a serious woman, and I want to be taken seriously. ~ Assata Shakur.
We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice. ~ Assata Shakur.
Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is. ~ Assata Shakur.
Cuba has its own moral system and priorities. That’s what keeps it going, the belief that the country can control its own destiny. ~ Assata Shakur.
Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory. ~ Assata Shakur.
Peace is a rare gift. Peace of mind, peaceful sleeps, and peaceful spirits are all luxuries that few rebels can ever afford. ~ Assata Shakur.
Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them. ~ Assata Shakur.
I realized that I was connected to Africa. ~ Assata Shakur.
I don’t have to live up to that Superwoman myth. I can cry and be human and lean on people who take care of me. That can be very liberating. ~ Assata Shakur.
The people who are running this planet are insane – they are literally destroying it. I don’t know where they think they’re gonna drink water, breathe air. ~ Assata Shakur.
Popular Assata Shakur Quotes
I feel lonely and serious. Something has been happening to me, a change that has been a long time coming. I want to be real. ~ Assata Shakur.
Any community seriously concerned with its own freedom has to be concerned about other peoples’ freedom as well. ~ Assata Shakur.
A revolutionary woman can’t have no reactionary man. ~ Assata Shakur.
My energy just couldn’t stop dancing. I was caught up in the music of struggle, and I wanted to dance. ~ Assata Shakur.
I believe in life. And I have seen the death parade. ~ Assata Shakur.
I’m not quite sure what freedom is, but I know damn well what it ain’t. How have we gotten so silly, I wonder. ~ Assata Shakur.
When you go through all your life processing and abusing your hair so it will look like the hair of another race of people then you are making a statement and the statement is clear. ~ Assata Shakur.
What most impressed me about Cuba was the optimism. ~ Assata Shakur.
I must confess that waltzes do not move me, I guess I hummed the blues too early, and spent too many midnights out wailing to the rain. ~ Assata Shakur.
The night crawls along. Nurses, doctors, and troopers. I am still scared, but I am just as angry and evil as I am scared. ~ Assata Shakur.
We had been completely brainwashed and we didn’t even know it. We accepted white value systems and white standards of beauty and, at times, we accepted the white man’s view of ourselves. We had never been exposed to any other point of view or any other standard of beauty. ~ Assata Shakur.
All you have to do is ask yourselves, who controls the government? And who are the victims of that control? ~ Assata Shakur.
Dreams and reality are opposites. Action synthesizes them. ~ Assata Shakur.
How lovely it is to live with a sense of community. To live where you can drop in the street and a million people will come and help you. ~ Assata Shakur.
Famous Assata Shakur Quotes
Life was like a bus: you could either be a passenger and go along for the ride, or you could be the driver. I didn’t have the foggiest idea where I wanted to go, but I knew that I wanted to drive. ~ Assata Shakur.
If we are not committed to saving this earth we will be buying designer air filters and gas masks with little Nike swishes on them. ~ Assata Shakur.
I think anybody who is honestly struggling against racism must struggle against imperialism and vice versa. ~ Assata Shakur.
Imperialism is the underlying motor of racism. The underlying reason that racism keeps on being promoted in all of its various forms. ~ Assata Shakur.
Where there is oppression, there will be resistance. ~ Assata Shakur.
A woman’s place is in the struggle. ~ Assata Shakur.
People think that in order for something to work, it has to be complicated, but a lot of times the opposite is true. We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice. ~ Assata Shakur.
Revolution is about change, and the first place the change begins is in yourself. ~ Assata Shakur.
People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave. ~ Assata Shakur.
When I was a child, if someone had talked to me about buying water, I would have thought it was a joke. ~ Assata Shakur.
Inspiring Assata Shakur Quotes
I think that one of the great things that the Cuban revolution has done is preserve history. ~ Assata Shakur.
To become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave. ~ Assata Shakur.
The world, in spite of oppression, is a beautiful place. ~ Assata Shakur.
Since we did not own the TV stations or newspapers, it was easy for the news media to portray us as monsters and terrorists. ~ Assata Shakur.
Every person that steps up and commits to social change helps solidify the black movement cause. It is not easy for those who fill in the leader role. ~ Assata Shakur.
No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. ~ Assata Shakur.
There was no doubt about it, our people would one day be free. The cowboys and bandits didn’t own the world. ~ Assata Shakur.
So these were the top 65 Assata Shakur quotes on love, freedom and education.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Rudy Francisco quotes and Diana Ross quotes.
