Reading Enhancement Guide #1: Assata By Assata Shakur (Patreon)

Here are five things to read, watch, or learn about to enrich your read of Assata by Assata Shakur. 

1) The Communist Red Scare

My image of a communist came from a cartoon. It was a spy with a black trench coat and a black hat pulled down over his face, slinking around corners. In school, we were taught that communists worked in salt mines, that they weren’t free, that everybody wore the same clothes, and that no one owned anything. The Africans rolled with laughter. I felt like a bona fide clown. One of them explained that communism was a political-economic system, but i wasn’t listening. I was just digging on myself. I had been hooping and hollering about something that i didn’t even understand. I knew i didn’t know what the hell communism was, and yet i’d been dead set against it.

-Pages 151-152

The second communist Red Scare occurred from roughly 1947-1957. Because Assata was born in 1947, she lived during the height of the Red Scare and was imbibed with prejudice against communism like many of her fellow Americans. Through propaganda in news media and film, citizens were encourage to snitch on suspected communists, and to even read communist literature could get one directly in trouble with the government. 

To Watch:

What is McCarthyism? And how did it happen? (6 Minutes, 2017)

How to Spot a Communist (1 Minute, 1950s)

1950s US Red Scare Propaganda (1 Minute, 1950s)

2) The My Lai Massacre

On page 191 Assata makes it clear that she was severely affected by the infamous My Lai massacre of the Vietnam War, as she kept a poster about the incident on her wall. It was in 1968 that atleast 26 soldiers murdered, raped, mutilated, and tortured over 347 Vietnamese civilians. The incident was caught on camera. 

To Watch:

The My Lai Massacre (5 Minutes, 2017)

Interview With My Lai Massacre Veterans (10 Minutes, 1970s)

3) Ebony Magazine Articles & Respectability Politics

On page 156, Assata detailed her brief (and argumentative) relationship with a man who worked at Johnson Publications which owned Ebony Magazine. Assata's main critique of the magazine was the expensive clothes shown off within it's pages, and she asked her paramour who could afford to buy them. As I've detailed in "Too Long Have Others Spoken For Us": A History of Black News Media, Ebony Magazine's target audience was the black middle class. Assata essentially saw Ebony and their readers as elitist sellouts, and I found it interesting to read this 1963 article about how the black middle class saw their role in the black community. 

4) Post-1987 Representations of Assata

Assata was published in 1987 while Assata was in Cuba. At the time it had been eight years since she escaped from police custody, and the mainstream media labeled her as a nefarious terrorist and the black community heralded her as a hero. In the 21 years since then, there have been multiple conflicting stories about who Assata is. Here are a list of articles that ponder if Assata is a terrorist or hero. 

Assata Shakur was convicted of murder. Is she a terrorist? (Krissa Thompson, 2013)

Assata Shakur: from civil rights activist to FBI's most-wanted (Bim Adewunmi, 2014)

Bring Assata Back ASAP (Michelle Malkin, 2017)

“Assata Shakur Is Welcome Here”: Havana, Black Freedom Struggle, and U.S.–Cuba Relations (Teishan A. Latner)

5) More Assata In Her Own Words 

Videos:

Black Rights Fugitive JoAnne Chesimard In Cuba (1998)

Assata Shakur in Her Own Words: Rare Recording of Activist Named to FBI Most Wanted Terrorists List

Articles:

Assata Shakur: The Interview

Assata Shakur: Prisoner in the United States (An Interview – Part 1)

I Am A 20th Century Escaped Slave (2014)