Assata Shakur’s story can’t be summed up in a post and i don’t want to disrespect it by trying to do so. She is so much more than just another Black Panther, the godmother of Tupac Shakur and a political exile living in Cuba. What i suggest is going to the library or bookstore and getting yourself a copy of her autobiography. I can assure you that it will move you. I owe Assata a great deal of gratitude. It is because of her words that i’ve now been clean for almost 4 years. Her words really helped to shape me into the dedicated organizer that i am today.

I don’t want to completely short-change you on some of Assata’s story, so i’ll leave with some links and the song that first introduced me to her. After i bought Common’s album, Like Water for Chocolate, i listened to this song and immediately looked her up online. Not finding much information at the time, i soon went to the book store and got her book. See, hip hop can change the world.

By the way, as of 2005, Assata has been declared a domestic terrorist by the federal government and a $1million reward has been put on her head. I suggest helping out with the Hands Off Assata campaign.

AssataShakur.org
Wikipedia: Assata Shakur

In the mid-19th century there was a strong movement that greatly threatened free Black people in the U.S. The de facto nationalization of slavery was created with three developments in government, the Compromise of 1850, which enacted the Fugitive Slave Law; the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which opened Northern territory to settlement by slaveholders; and the Dred Scott decision of 1857, which declared that no Black persyn could be a citizen of the U.S. Following these developments, there was an offensive move among the powerful slaveholders pushing permanent enslavement of all Black people. The argument was that slavery was the God-ordained state for Black people. Along with the movement was an economic offensive making it more difficult for Black people to earn a living outside the system of slavery. It was at this time that a famine in Ireland and politics throughout Europe sent millions of White immigrants to the shores of the U.S. Between 1830 and 1860 more than five million such immigrants settled in American cities. The effect was devastating to the Black workforce, but played well into the hands of slaveholders.

The new wave of immigrants, although detested by much of the existing White population, had one advantage over free Blacks - they weren’t Black. The fight over the worst “free” jobs became an all-out war in several cities. The worst tensions seemed to be between Irish immigrants and free Blacks. The ironic part of this war was that both sides were viewed by the White owning class as bottom of the bucket. Irish immigrants were referred to as “white niggers” and to be called an “Irishman” was considered a great insult.

However, in the fight to create a system where Black people were systematically enslaved by the law of God and government, it made sense for the owning classes to back the advancement of the “white nigger” over the original. The growing workforce of skilled free Blacks was swiftly wiped out and replaced by a strong White workforce. Leaving Blacks with little room to survive outside the system of slavery. Frederick Douglass wrote of this trend in the March 4, 1853 edition of Frederick Douglass’ Papers:

White men are becoming house-servants, cooks and stewards on vessels - at hotels. - They are becoming porters, stevedores, wood-sawyers, hod-carriers, brick-makers, white-washers and barbers, so that the blacks can scarcely find the means of subsistence - a few years ago, and a white barber would have been a curiosity - now their poles stand on every street. Formerly blacks were almost the exclusive coachmen in wealthy families: this is so no longer; white men are now employed, and for aught we see, they fill their servile station with an obsequiousness as profound as that of blacks. The readiness and ease with which they adapt themselves to these conditions ought not be lost sight of my the colored people. The meaning is very important, and we should learn from it. We are taught our insecurity by it. Without the means of living, life is a curse, and leaves us at the mercy of the oppressor to become his debased slaves. Now, colored men, what do you mean to do, for you must do something. The American Colonization Society tells you to go to Liberia. Mr. [Henry] Bibbs tells you to go to Canada. Others tell you to go to school. We tell you to go to work; and to work you must to or die.”

However, with the rise of Jim Crow laws and White Supremacy within unions, finding work as a free Black persyn was easier said than done. And almost as if to prove their place within the nation of White supremacy, immigrants would often kills free Blacks, burn their homes and churches, force them out of cities, and so forth. The new White working class had little political power and, instead, depended largely on brute force, overwhelming numbers, and eventually economic bullying via unions. Of course the White working class can’t be held entirely responsible for the oppression of Black people. Far more Blacks were killed by the system of slavery than at the hands of White immigrants. The White workers were largely used as foot soldiers in the war against free Black people in the U.S. and provided an alternative for exploitable free labor.