Assata: An Autobiography

by Assata Shakur

3. To enact a homestead law giving a medium-size farm free to anyone willing to till the land.

  The platform was designed to appeal to rich Northern capitalists, poor white laborers, farmers, and abolitionists. For only a tiny portion of the population was the abolition of slavery a moral issue, and the overwhelming majority of the white people who supported the abolition of slavery or who fought in the Union's army did so because they believed it was in their interests, not for love or concern for Black people.

  I was gradually becoming more active. I began to control my life. Before going back to college, i knew i didn't want to be an intellectual, spending my life in books and libraries without knowing what the hell was going on in the streets. Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory. The two have to go together. I was determined to do both.

  The major way i got hip to things was by listening to people. The Black students going to Manhattan Community College be longed to every type of organization. There were Black Muslims, Garveyites, Malcolm X's Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), members of various community and cultural organizations, and a few who were young turks of the NAACP. We got together and talked about everything under the sun. I did a whole lot more listening than talking, but i asked questions about any thing i didn't understand. Sometimes the discussions and debates got so heated that they lasted until eleven o'clock, when night school ended and the building was being closed up.

  One of the first organizations i checked out was a Garveyite group that had a big hall on 125th Street. I had just read a book on Marcus Garvey. In fact, i had only recently learned he existed. It was a shame. Here he had headed up one of the strongest movements of Black people in amerika and i hadn't heard about him until i was grown. One of the brothers who was studying there invited me to a meeting.

  The meeting was upstairs. There seemed to be hundreds of chairs in the room. I arrived a little early and hardly anyone was there. I spotted the brother who had invited me, and he introduced me to the ten or fifteen people already there. We sat around in a little group talking and waiting for the others to arrive. They never came. It was obvious that everyone knew each other and had been

  coming to these meetings for a long time. After a while, a speaker climbed the podium. He welcomed me to the meeting, then gave an impassioned speech. One after another got up and gave speeches as if they were talking to a roomful of people. The others applauded loudly. I felt sad. They were such nice people, and so sincere, but their circle had grown so small they were reduced to giving speeches to each other.

  No movement can survive unless it is constantly growing and changing with the times. If it isn't growing, it's stagnant, and without the support of the people, no movement for liberation can exist, no matter how correct its analysis of the situation is. That's why political work and organizing are so important. Unless you are addressing the issues people are concerned about and contributing positive direction, they'll never support you. The first thing the enemy tries to do is isolate revolutionaries from the masses of people, making us horrible and hideous monsters so that our people will hate us.

  All we usually hear about are the so-called responsible leaders, the ones who are "responsible" to our oppressors. In the same way that we don't hear about a fraction of the Black men and women who have struggled hard and tirelessly throughout our history, we don't hear about our heroes of today.

  The schools we go to are reflections of the society that created them. Nobody is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free. Schools in amerika are interested in brainwashing people with amerikanism, giving them a little bit of education, and training them in skills needed to fill the positions the capitalist system requires. As long as we expect amerika's schools to educate us, we will remain ignorant.

  The parents in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville section of Brooklyn, like Black parents all around New York at that time, were pushing for control of the schools in their communities. They wanted a say in what their children were taught, in how their schools were run, and in who was teaching their children. They wanted the local school boards to have hiring-and-firing power over teachers in their districts, but the city's board of education and the American Federation of Teachers was against them.

  A whole bunch of us from Manhattan Community College loaded on the subway and took the train out to a demonstration called by the Ocean Hill-Brownsville parents. As soon as we got off the train we ran into some students from CCNY. It seemed like the whole train had been heading for the demonstration, and it was just the kind of demonstration i like.

  An energetic sea of Black faces. Proud, alive, angry, disciplined, upbeat, and, most of all, with that sisterly, brotherly kinship i loved. Several of the parents spoke to the crowd, along with the Black principal the parents had insisted on hiring. A Black teacher, head wrapped in a galee, talked about the importance of Black people controlling our schools. She made sweeping gestures with her bangled arms as she spoke. Everybody dug what she said. We were all high on the atmosphere. It seemed like a kinetic dance was boogying in the air.

  When it was over, i hated to go home. There aren't too many experiences that give you that good, satisfied feeling, that make you feel so clean and refreshed, as when you are fighting for your freedom.

  Most of us felt that taking control of our neighborhoods was the first step toward liberation. We sat in the subway station trip ping. When a train did come, we just let it pass. First we would take control of the schools; then we would take control of the hospitals; then we would take control of the colleges, the housing, etc., etc. We would have community-controlled employment, welfare centers, and city, state, and federal agencies.

  "Hold on for a minute," somebody said. "Where are ya'll gonna get the money to run all that stuff?"

  "We'll take community control of the banks," someone else answered.

  "You'd better take control of the army, too, because those banks aren't gonna just let you take their money lying down."

  "We'll take control of the political institutions in our community. Then we'll take control of the congressional seats, the senate seats, the city council seats, the mayor's office, and every other office that we can take control of. We'll take control of the political offices so we can allocate money to the people who need it. "

  "Y'all just wishing and hoping," someone said. "You can control the social institutions and the political institutions, but unless you control the economic and military institutions, you can only go but so far."

  Everybody just sort of got quiet, thinking.

  "Well, what are we supposed to do, then? Just sit back and do nothing? "

  "Fighting for community control is just the first step. It can only go so far. What you need is a revolution."

  Everybody started talking about what the brother had said. We were all confused, but we were all enthused. That was the one thing i dug about those days. We were alive and we were excited and we believed that we were going to be free someday. For us, it wasn't a matter of whether or not. It was a question of how.

  We always started out talking about reform and ended up talking about revolution. If you were talking about anything except a few little jive crumbs here and there, reform was just not going to get it. I was long past the day when i thought that reform could possibly work, but revolution was a big question mark. I believed, with all my heart, that it was possible. But the question was how.

  I had heard a lot about the Republic of New Afrika and had promised myself to check it out. The Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika advocated the establishment of a separate Black nation within the u.s., to be made up of what is now South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. At the time, i thought the group was kind of wild and far out, but i got 0/ good feeling being around them and the idea of a Black nation appealed to me.

  The
first time i attended a Republic of New Afrika event, i drank in the atmosphere and enjoyed the easy audacity of it all. The surroundings were gay and carnival-like. A group of brothers were pounding out Watusi, Zulu, and Yoruba messages on the drums. Groups of sisters and brothers danced to motherland rhythms until their skins were glazed with sweat. Speeches were woven between songs and poems. Vibrant sisters and brothers with big Afros and flowing African garments strolled proudly up and down the aisles. Bald-headed brothers, wearing combat boots and military uniforms with leopard-skin epaulets, stood around with their arms folded, looking dangerous. Little girls running and laughing, their heads wrapped with galees, tiny little boys wearing tiny little dashikis. People calling each other names like Jamal, Malik, Kisha, or Aiesha. Sandlewood and coconut incense floated through the air. Red, black, and green flags hung from the rafters alongside posters of Malcolm and Marcus Garvey. Serious-looking young men, wear ing jeans and green army field jackets, passed out leaflets. Exotic looking sisters and brothers, decked out in red, black, and green, sat behind felt-covered tables and sold incense, bead earrings, and an assortment of other items.

  "Peace, sister," a voice said. "Do you wanna be a citizen?"

  "What?" i asked, without the slightest notion of what she was talking about.

  "A citizen," she repeated. "Do you want to be a citizen of the Republic of New Afrika?"

  "How do i become a citizen?”

  "Easy. Just sign your name in the citizens' book.”

  "That's all?”

  "Yeah. You want a name?”

  "A name?”

  "Yeah, sista, a name. If you want an African name, just ask that brother over there to give you one.”

  The brother she pointed out was wearing a long bubba with matching pants and a matching fez-type hat. He was wearing various necklaces made of beads, bones, shells, and pieces of wood. His left ear was pierced and his face was strained in concentration, the veins in his forehead throbbing.

  Without giving it a second thought, i went over to have my name changed. The brother looked at me, asked me a couple of questions which i don't remember, and then began shaking a container furiously. He hurled out the contents, which turned out to be shells, onto a soft cloth. After a long, concentrated stare at the shells and after glancing back and forth at me, the brother decided that my name was Ybumi Oladele. He spelled the name out to me as i wrote it down, then i hurried over to the sister's table and became a citizen of the Republic of New Afrika. Ybumi Oladele. I liked the way it sounded. Soft and musical, kinda happy-sounding. I filed my new name away in my pocketbook and continued suck ing in the atmosphere, tripping out on the idea of a Black nation in Babylon, a nation of Black people smack dab in the middle of the belly of the beast. Imagining Black youth flourishing and being nourished in Black schools, taught by teachers who loved them and who taught them to love themselves. Controlling their lives, their institutions, working together to build a humane society, ending the long legacy of suffering Black people have endured at the hands of amerika. My mind spaced out on the idea and in a minute i was imagining red, black, and green buses, apartment buildings with African motifs, Black television shows, and movies that reflected the real quality of Black life rather than the real quality of white racism. I imagined everything from cities called Malcolmville and New Lumumba to a reception for revolutionary leaders around the world at the Black House. Sure enough, i liked the idea of a Black nation, but i didn't give it any serious consideration as a possible solution. Back then, the idea just seemed too farfetched. I guess, at the time, having an African name seemed a little farfetched, too. I told my friends about the name, talked about it for a few days, and then promptly forgot about it.

  It wasn't until years later-after college and more revolutionary activism and marriage-that i began to seriously think about changing my name. The name JoAnne began to irk my nerves. I had changed a lot and moved to a different beat, felt like a different person. It sounded so strange when people called me JoAnne. It really had nothing to do with me. I didn't feel like no JoAnne, or no Negro, or no amerikan. I felt like an African woman. From the time i picked my hair out in the morning to the time i slipped off to sleep with Mingus in the background, i felt like an African woman and rejoiced in it. My big, abstract black and white inkblot-looking painting was replaced by paintings of Black people and revolutionary posters. My life became an African life, my surroundings took on an African flavor, my spirit took on an African glow. From the paintings on my walls to the big, fat pillows on my floor, from the incense burning in the air to the music dancing through the rooms, my whole life was moving to African rhythms. My mind, heart, and soul had gone back to Africa, but my name was still stranded in Europe somewhere. JoAnne was bad enough, but at least my mother had given it to me. As for Chesimard, well, i could only come to one conclusion. Somebody named Chesimard had been the slavemaster of my ex-husband's ancestors. Chesimard, like most other last names Black people use today, was derived from massa. Black folks went from being Mr. johnson's Mary and Mr.

  Jackson's Paul to being Mary Johnson and Paul Jackson. Some times, before dozing off to sleep, i would lie in bed and think about it, wondering how many slaves Chesimard had owned in Martini que and how often he beat them. I would stare up at the ceiling wondering how many Black women Chesimard had raped, how many Black babies he had fathered, and how many Black people he had been responsible for killing.

  So the name finally had to go. I thought about Ybumi Oladele, but there was one problem. I didn't know what the name meant. My new name had to mean something really special to me. At the time, there were little pamphlets being put out listing names and their meanings, but i had a hard time finding one i liked. A lot of the names had to do with flowers or songs or birds or other things like that. Others meant born on Thursday, faithful, loyal, or even things like tears, or little fool, or one who giggles. The women's names were nothing like the men's names, which meant things like strong, warrior, man of iron, brave, etc. I wanted a name that had something to do with struggle, something to do with the liberation of our people. I decided on Assata Olugbala Shakur. Assata means "She who struggles," Olugbala means "Love for the people," and i took the name Shakur out of respect for Zayd and Zayd's family. Shakur means "the thankful."

  At first, the Golden Drums society concentrated its efforts on Black culture and history. But after a while we started to examine our role as students. We didn't want to be tape recorders, recording what ever information, facts, lies they gave us and then playing them all back during examinations. We began to talk about an education that was relevant to us as Black people, that we could take back to our communities. We didn't want to learn Latin or classical Greek. We wanted to learn things that we could use to help free our people.

  One of our first struggles centered on student government. Most of us were from working-class or poor families and we wanted a student government that was responsive to what we needed. We didn't need a student government that was brownnos ing the administration in return for favors and good grades. We wanted a student government that supported a Black studies pro gram, more Black faculty members, and other Black causes. As a result, the Golden Drum Society and the Students for Democratic Society (SDS) ran a joint ticket and won by a landslide.

  It soon became evident that having control of the student government wasn't enough. It had no real power. We would pass resolutions and come up with proposals, which the administration would promptly deny. The only power we had was over the student government budget. Instead of inviting reactionary "scholars" or politicians to speak, we invited the Young Lords or the Black Panther Party or some other group who was saying something relevant.

  One of our proposals was for students to work during the summer in remedial programs to improve the level of kids who had trouble with reading and math. Our idea was to have a few kids assigned to each student-teacher. In that way, each one would receive the individual attention he or she needed. The academic curriculum was
to be supplemented with courses that would enhance the students' sense of self-worth and give them more of a sense of their history. Student-teachers would work with parents, visit the kids' homes, and create a kind of day camp by offering sports, trips, crafts, etc. Several of the Black faculty members helped us with the proposal. As soon as it was submitted it was rejected.

  The administration claimed there was no money. A small investigation into finances, aided by some concerned Black and white faculty members, revealed that the president of the college was living in a house rent-free, that taxpayers were also providing him with chauffeur and maid services, and that student fees, which had not been spent in previous years, were being invested on the stock market. A rather strange financial picture was emerging. After we made some of our investigation results known to the administration, we were informed that the money for the project had been found.

  As a student-teacher i taught reading and math in the morning and arts and crafts in the afternoon. The morning classes were tiny, while the afternoon classes were larger, combining various morning groups. The curriculum included Black history, dancing and drum ming, physical education, arts and crafts, in addition to reading and math. There was an excursion every Friday afternoon.

  My mother thought my teaching reading and writing was a joke. My spelling is terrible, and my skills in mathematics are limited to two and two equaling four. To prepare myself for the day's lesson, i had to study just as hard as the kids. My students shocked the hell out of me. Through conversation, it was obvious just how bright they were, yet they scored way below their grade levels in reading and math. There was such a big contradiction between the intelligence they exhibited in class and their test scores that i didn't know where to begin. The books we had to work with were Reader's Digest-like textbooks that i couldn't even imagine using. I didn't even want to read those things and i knew sure as hell that my students wouldn't want to use them. So every day, i took the vocabulary out of those books and wrote a little story, something i thought the students would find interesting, typed it on a stencil, and ran it off. I brought all kinds of books to school for them to read, and as long as they found the books interesting, those students would read until the cows came home. I was learning just as much as the kids. I found it oppressive playing teacher all the time, so every day i rotated the thing around. Everybody got to be teacher for a while. It was also great for discipline, since if some body acted up in your class, you were free to act up in theirs. Nobody wanted people to act up in their class so everyone was more or less cool.