National Conference of Black Lawyers Honors the Life of Assata Shakur

Our warrior sister, Assata Shakur, transitioned from this plane on September 25, 2025.

She committed her life to the Movement for Black Liberation and gave her life for it. Her

courage and commitment are a legacy to the Movement for Black Liberation.

NCBL provided lifetime legal support for Assata Shakur over the past 52 years, since

May 2, 1973. At the request of Haywood Burns, Lennox Hinds assisted NCBL

attorney, Assata Shakur’s aunt and lead defense counsel, Evelyn Williams, in

assembling Assata’s defense team. NCBL Attorney Lew Meyers joined the legal team.

NCBL Attorneys Chokwe Lumumba and Joan Gibbs, were leading NCBL voices in

raising the claims of the injustice of the charges against Assata Shakur. Lennox Hinds,

NCBL’s associate director at the time of her arrest and trial, spoke on the inability of

Assata to receive a fair trial, indicating that the judge lacked the judicial temperament

and racial sensitivity to fairly adjudicate her case. In fact, she had already been tried in

New York and either exonerated or the charges dismissed. In the New Jersey trial, there

was evidence, among other things, that Assata was unable to hold a gun at that time.

Hinds represented Assata in challenging conditions of confinement in the New Jersey

prison where she was being held during and after trial. He also represented Assata at

times throughout her almost 50 years of exile in Cuba and provided legal support and

counsel to her daughter, Kakuya.

Assata was liberated from the New Jersey prison and given political asylum in Cuba,

avoiding a lifelong commitment to a United States prison. Yet this was a hard life she

chose to live in her lifelong commitment to Black liberation. Our dear sister spent most

of her adult life in political exile suffering the painful separation from her family, at that

time her daughter and later her grandchildren, other family members and her comrades.The Cuban government followed the 1951 U.N. International Refugee Convention in

granting her political asylum. This Convention was used by France to support granting

political asylum to three Black Panthers. Although granted political asylum by the

Cuban government, Sister Assata’s movements in Cuba became more and more

restricted due to the United States and New Jersey funded bounty hunters attempting to

capture her and return her to the United States. The United States also used the Cuban

government’s grant of political asylum to support its stranglehold on Cuba – maintaining

and increasing the embargoes. Yes, Cuba demonstrated its support for the Movement

for Black Liberation in defying the United States’ demands for her return. And yes, our

dear sister gave her life for Black Liberation.

NCBL honors Assata’s life and mourns her death. May she finally find rest and peace

as she joins the ancestors, including her aunt, Evelyn Williams, Lew Meyers, Chokwe

Lumumba, Joan Gibbs, and Black Liberation Army comrades Zayd Malik, Sekou

Odinga, and Mutulu Shakur.

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BLACK LAWYERS HONORS THE LIFE OF ASSATA SHAKUR.pdf

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