Zohran Mamdani’s political party, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), mourned Assata Shakur, one of the FBI’s former most wanted terrorists, who was convicted of murdering a New Jersey state trooper in 1973 before fleeing to Cuba years later.
In a social media post Saturday, the DSA said the “American state brutally oppressed” Shakur and her fellow Black Panther Party members. “Rest in Power, Assata Shakur,” wrote the socialist group, whose best-known members are Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.). The DSA has taken credit for powering Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral Democratic primary.
Shakur was convicted in 1973 for the murder of New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout following a traffic stop. After her fellow radicals helped her escape prison, Shakur showed up in Cuba in 1984, where the nation’s communist dictator, Fidel Castro, granted her asylum. Shakur, the godmother of slain rapper Tupac Shakur, died at the age of 78 of natural causes, according to the Cuban foreign ministry.
The DSA’s support for Shakur raises questions for Mamdani as he seeks to downplay his past radical statements on police and Israel. Mamdani has backed away from his calls in 2020 to “defund the police.” He initially refused to condemn the chant, “Globalize the intifada,” which is widely viewed as a call to attack Jewish people, but later said he would “discourage” people from using the phrase.
Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment about his views on Shakur.
Reps. Summer Lee (D., Pa.), Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.), and Yvette Clarke (D., N.Y.), the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), joined in the outpouring of leftist support for Shakur. Lee quoted a poem written by Shakur—”We have nothing to lose but our chains”–with a black power fist emoji. Clarke wrote, “If there is a single truth in this world, it is that Assata died a free woman.” Pressley echoed the same remarks during a speech at a CBC event on Friday. “Rest in Peace and Power,” said Pressley.
The Chicago Teachers Union and Janai Nelson, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, also paid homage to Shakur. Nelson referred to Shakur as a “freedom fighter” and an “example of undaunted resistance.”
Shakur joined the Black Panther Party in 1970, and then its more radical offshoot, the Black Liberation Army.
According to an FBI report in 1991, the Black Liberation Army had two primary goals: “to ‘kill cops'” and then “seize control of their communities and liberate black people from repression,” and to “expropriate funds from the capitalists and imperialists” in order to finance “the revolution.”
Shakur was implicated in a number of bank robberies in the early 1970s, and was a suspect in a 1971 hand grenade attack that injured two New York City Police Department officers.
Shakur was convicted in 1977 for the murder of Foerster, but was sprung out of prison two years later by members of the Black Liberation Army and the May 19th Communist Organization. Susan Rosenberg, a ringleader of the May 19 Coalition who allegedly helped free Shakur, recently donated to Lee’s campaign, as well as to Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.), the Washington Free Beacon reported.
The FBI placed Shakur on its “most wanted terrorist” list after her prison escape.
The outpouring of support for Shakur is in stark contrast to the DSA and lawmakers’ remarks after the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was allegedly assassinated by Tyler Robinson, a 21-year-old Utah man who embraced left-wing and pro-transgender political causes.
The CBC opposed a resolution last week condemning Kirk’s death, saying the bill was “an attempt to legitimize Kirk’s worldview—a worldview that includes ideas many Americans find racist, harmful, and fundamentally un-American.”
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