Assata Shakur Quotes

United States, Political Activist
July 16, 1947

Assata Olugbala Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Byron, sometimes referred to by her married surname Chesimard) is a former member of the Black Liberation Army, who was convicted of the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. Shakur was also the target of the FBI's COINTELPRO program, a counterintelligence program directed towards Black Liberation groups and activists.

People are tried and convicted in the newspapers and on television before they ever see a courtroom.

Assata Shakur
A revolutionary woman can't have no reactionary man.

Assata Shakur
- Man
- Woman
- Reactionary

Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.

Assata Shakur
- Enemy
- Fool
- Tell
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
I believe in the fire of love and the sweat of truth.

Assata Shakur
- Believe
- Love
- Truth
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
No one 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.

Assata Shakur
- Free
- Knowledge
- Education
The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives.

Assata Shakur
- Lives
- Property
- Rulers

Dreams and reality are opposites. Action synthesizes them.

Assata Shakur
- Reality
- Action
- Dreams
In the long run, the people are our only appeal. The only ones who can free us are ourselves.

Assata Shakur
- People
- Free
- Appeal