Assata: An Autobiography

"To My People" was a recorded statement released by Assata Shakur while in jail in Middlesex County, NJ. The tape was recorded on Independence Day, 1973, and was broadcast on numerous radio stations.[5] Shakur includes the transcript of the recording in Chapter 3 of the autobiography.[3] The recording was released in response to the media coverage about Shakur after the New Jersey Turnpike Shooting. In the recording, Assata publicly described herself as a black revolutionary, her participation in the Black Liberation Army and her participation in the incident. In the message Assata describes the corruption of police, structural inequality between blacks and whites, and the American support of brutal wars and regimes in Cambodia, Vietnam, and South Africa.

Shakur describes the oppression she faced and witnessed throughout her life. The book[3] begins with the physical abuse she received from New Jersey police officers in the hospital after the shooting on the Turnpike.[6] She discusses the trials against her and describes them as completely fabricated. Along with the oppression from the state, she recounts the racism her and her family experienced in North Carolina as well as watching the NAACP train people for peaceful protests and sit-ins.[7] Shakur describes resistance methods taken by the NAACP including the peaceful, non-violence ideology. Though she does not adopt this, she respects it. Shakur chooses to take on roles with the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army as forms of resistance to social oppression.

Throughout the book[3] Shakur describes her personal desire to be a revolutionary, and the social revolution she believes is necessary for African Americans and other minorities. She discusses this revolution many times including in the “To My People” recording. The idea of revolution is also mentioned when she makes the opening statement[8] at the New York State Supreme Court County of Kings during the trial against her; where she was accused of the kidnap of a drug dealer, for which she was acquitted.

In Chapter 13[3] Shakur describes her introduction into the Black Panther Party while visiting the Bay Area. Shakur discusses her reservations about joining the party with the members which included their lack of politeness and respect for the people they talked to. Shakur eventually joins while living in New York. It is when she joins the party, she witnesses and experiences the Federal Bureau of Investigation infiltration of political organizations now known as COINTELPRO.[9] It is this surveillance that leads her to choose to go “underground” and eventually leave the party.