Assata Shakur dies at aged 78
Late Hip-Hop icon 2pac's godmother passes away in Cuban
Elohim Nyame 
Assata Shakur, member of the Black Liberation Army and political fugitive with a $2 million FBI bounty on her head, passed on in Havana where she was accorded political asylum from late Fidel Castro, the Cuban Foreign Ministry disclosed on Friday.
According to the statement, Shakur, who was also known as Joanne Chesimard, took her last breath on Thursday from “health ailments and her advanced age."
Shakur, also known as the godmother and step-aunt of slain Hip-Hop icon Tupac Shakur, was 78 years old.
A boisterous activist of armed revolution in the United States, Shakur was convicted for her role in a 1973 shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that killed a state trooper. Shakur was herself sustained injuries in the exchange of gunfire and asserted that the FBI had targeted her for assassination as part of a widespread campaign against black militant organisations in the 1960s and 70s
While serving a life sentence for the murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster, Shakur broke jail in New Jersey in 1979 and bolted.
She reappeared in 1984 in Cuba where then Cuban leader Fidel Castro awarded her political asylum. While residing in Cuba, Shakur authored books, featured in a documentary, and mocked US efforts to compel her extradition.
In 2013, the FBI declared Shakur the first woman on its most wanted terrorists list and, with the state of New Jersey solicitor, increased the reward for her capture to $2 million.
Her asylum on the communist-governed jurisdiction among a handful of other US fugitives from justice provided fodder for anti-Castro activists who argued that Cuba should remain on the US State Department list of nations that fund state terrorism.
Credit: Vibe.com
