When the judge learned i was sick and unable to come to kourt, he had a fit. He acted like i had gotten sick just to delay the trial. - Assata Shakur

we who rip off billions of dollars every year through tax evasions, illegal price fixing, embezzlement, consumer fraud, bribes, kickbacks, and swindles. They call us bandits, yet every time most Black people pick up our paychecks we are being robbed. Every time we walk into a store in our neighborhood we are being held up. And every time we pay our rent the landlord sticks a gun into our ribs.

The female guard on duty that night, the slimiest one in the prison, was nowhere in sight. After that, no matter what jail i was in, i always found some way to barricade my cell. In prisons, it is not at all uncommon to find a prisoner hanged or burned to death in his cell. No matter how suspicious the circumstances, these deaths are always ruled “suicides.” They are usually Black inmates, considered to be a “threat to the orderly running of the prison.” They are usually among the most politically aware and socially conscious inmates in the prison.

I want to apologize to you, my Black brothers and sisters, for being on the new jersey turnpike. I should have known better. The turnpike is a checkpoint where Black people are stopped, searched, harassed, and assaulted. Revolutionaries must never be in too much of a hurry or make careless decisions. He who runs when the sun is sleeping will stumble many times.