For nearly fifty years, the fugitive revolutionary Black nationalist Assata Shakur defied the monstrous system of racialized mass incarceration in the United States. Since the 1970s, more than seven million African Americans have been caged in the hellhole conditions of state and federal prisons. Nonetheless, Assata, likely framed for murder in 1977 in an act of political retaliation, died a free woman on September 25 in Havana, Cuba.

Assata escaped prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba, where she received asylum and continued to write and speak on revolutionary themes. The US government was desperate to see Assata brought back in chains to continue serving her life sentence, despite the lack of evidence that she fired the fatal shot — or any weapon — during the 1973 traffic stop that resulted in the death of state trooper Werner Foerster.

In 2005, George W. Bush elevated her to the status of a “domestic terrorist.” In 2013, under the administration of President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, she became the first woman ever placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list. A preposterous and unprecedented $2 million reward was offered for information leading to her capture. The state appeared determined to neutralize her just for existing as a Black female radical free of its grasp.