demonstration. Audience members proudly brandished signs that read "Assata Shakur is Welcome Here."
Photo Credit: https://marypatten.com/section/3
In the message, Assata made clear that Black people are not at home in the United States of America. Paraphrasing Malcolm X's "Message to the Grassroots” speech, she explained that the Black Liberation Movement needed to focus on securing independence and a land base, the Republic of New 11 Afrika's national territory: "We'll be free as Afrikans," she claimed. "New Afrikans." Her words and her newly earned status as a modern-day maroon made her living proof that the US empire was not 12 all-powerful and undefeatable. 11
Assata Shakur, "U.N. Human Rights Campaign – Statement from Assata Shakur," November 5, 1979, 3,
Freedom Archives online. 12
"Assata Shakur Liberated," 9; N ew Afrikan Institute of Political Education, Towards the Liberation of the
Black Nation: Organize for New Afrikan People's War!" 2, c. 1981, Freedom Archives online.