Assata Shakur
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What's going on, everybody? I'm Marah. And I'm Taz. And welcome back to Sisters Who Kill. Happy Juneteenth, everyone. Happy Juneteenth. We have a special episode together. I hope you guys like it. Today's episode is one that we are very, very, very excited about. It is filled with history lessons. It is filled with things that will warm your heart, things that will hurt your heart. But more importantly, it is a story that is of resilience.

so

Okay, so let's dive right into our players. Up first, we have Zayd Malik Shakur, a black revolutionary gunned down by the police. Then we have Sundiata Akoli, a black revolutionary that is currently being held as a political prisoner in the U.S. And Joanne Deborah Chesimard, better known as Assata Shakur. And that's this week's murderess.

That's right. Joanne Deborah Bryan was born July 16, 1947, according to her FBI Want It poster. The FBI actually cannot find any records that she was born. Anyway, she was born in Queens, New York, and she was the eldest of her other two siblings. Her parents divorced in 1950.

And not much left is spoken about her dad. She spent her summers in North Carolina with her grandparents in the segregated South at the time, but her grandparents were pretty well off. They owned some land that was close to the beach. So they kind of paved off some land so that there would be a parking lot so they could have black access to the beach. And she worked with her family in the convenience store and to help direct cars during the height season.

While growing up in the segregated South, her grandmother encouraged her not to let whites define her, like white people define her. She would fuss at her for walking down, looking at her feet, and using submissive language. She told her, I want that head held up high, and I don't want you taking no mess from anybody, you understand? Don't let me hear about anybody walking over my grandbaby, which, you know, sounds like migraine, TBH.

Right. Her grandmother was what we would describe as like an upper crust or a bougie type. She wanted Assata to get a good education and to only play with kids that she found respectable.

right like her mom had like her grandma had like a problem with her playing with like alley rats she was like don't be out there playing with alley rats but asada was like it's all in that company you keep type of thing it's that company you keep but also like what is alley rat who are you to define it somebody else's child as alley rat but like asada loved her grandmother like this was the woman that defined who she was as a woman you know she yeah

As grandmothers do. Yeah. Asada was a bookworm. She loved to read and suck up all the knowledge that she could get. She also had a passion for museums and arts that was brought on by her aunt, Evelyn Williams. She said that she read just about every book in her aunt's library besides the law books. The public schools in New York weren't great. And at one point, she was in an all-white school and was constantly being put down by her teacher, especially if she already knew something that the teacher was about to teach or that the other students didn't know.

Asada ended up dropping out of school in New York and she began running away a lot. She said she was obsessed with being on the train and would like to see where it would take her. So she was really just out here daydreaming through life. I mean, when I was living in New York for a little while, like there was nothing better than just like hitting the train and seeing where you landed and just walking through all the neighborhoods because she was interested in the different neighborhoods. Like what was happening in Harlem? What was happening in Chinatown? What was happening here? She liked to be outside. Mm hmm.

And she ran away when she was like 12, 13 years old. So in order to find money, she found jobs from day to day. One day she was working here. She'd get a little bit of cash, have a place to sleep. Next day she was getting a job here. And then finally, one day somebody actually saw her, one of her aunt's friends. And she was trying to pretend like,

Y'all can't see me, but they ended up seeing her, calling her aunt to come pick her up. And she had already dropped out at this time, but her aunt was really encouraging her to, you know, find a job that she could work at during the day so that you could get your GED at night. And she did. After getting her GED, she attended Manhattan Community College, and she also attended City College of New York.

And this was like a pivotal moment in her life. This is where you really started to see her shift in mind start to happen, you know? So Manhattan Community College had a large number of black students. She was invited to meetings with an organization called the Golden Drums. This was an all black student organization.

She enjoyed the group because they showed that they really cared for her. They were looking out for her. They were asking her, how was your day? How are your classes going? And they actually cared to know the answer. You know, that shit goes a long way, especially when you're in school. She recalled that this group opened up her eyes. Her first time ever hearing about who Nat Turner was, was actually in one of these meetings. And y'all, as Juneteenth, y'all should know who Nat Turner is.

from Virginia. He was a slave that knew how to read in 1831. He led a revolt that killed a whole bunch of white people and he was castrated

captured and executed by the government in what 1831 y'all should know who Nat Turner is but anyways what she realized was that she didn't know who Nat Turner was you know what I'm saying like she wasn't taught that in school she realized that as a child she was kind of taught that like slaves didn't fight back they didn't rebel that they kind of took that shit lying down and and

as now a young adult realizing that no that is not how it happened that's not how history was like we weren't content with this we weren't okay with right we weren't just taking shit lying down we were fighting constantly for our freedom we were constantly rebelling constantly resisting like and this just kind of opened up her eyes and because of this group she learned so many things like honest Abe wasn't so honest not so honest yeah

George Washington definitely told some lies. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but it's them little things they teach you in elementary school. Yes, she told about the story in her autobiography about being in a play where she was a tree that George Washington cut down. She was like, oh, it's great. And it's like, I cut down a tree. It was me. And it was just this little ass thing you couldn't lie about. But they taught you that that's how it was supposed to be. This really changed herself because y'all know that the Emancipation Proclamation

had nothing to do with freeing the slaves, right? Y'all knew that, right? Y'all know it was all about the economy, right? It was all about the dollar. It's always about money. It's always about money. One day, one of the girls at the Golden Drums asked her, like, why don't you just wear your hair natural? And she was like, you know, honestly, it never occurred to me. And then she started thinking about her perception of beauty standards and how European beauty standards had affected her. Right.

And from that day forward, she went home, she cut that creamy crack out of her hair, and then she wore her natural hair ever since. Asada would later join the Golden Drums, and they would support parents in Brooklyn that were protesting the school because they felt like their students would be better taught by black teachers, their schools would be better ran by black principals, which... Agree. To try and ensure that the kids have an accurate representation of their own history as black kids, you know?

Asada, she was a student teacher while she was in college and she loved to teach, even when sometimes that meant staying up all night to prepare for the next lessons. And she was just able to see that the New York public school systems had white principals. They lied to the bureaucracy. They weren't caring about the success of their students. What else has changed?

And she's like this public school thing, like I'm trying to do the best I can and like teach these students. But like trying to have to live up to what these white people want from me. She's like, I can't do it. Right. And it's it's kind of crazy how she's like, I don't want to live up to the bureaucracy of the public school system of the Board of Education. And we're seeing that literally right now because fuck you, Florida. And all the other 23 other states that are trying to ban critical race theory being taught in school.

Which is crazy. Which is wild. And my thing about the critical race theory... Okay, break into... Let's tell the people what critical race theory is. So...

Critical race theory, honestly, it is teaching black history in a proper way so that you can critically think about how these systems of oppression have been put in place against minorities. And then once you start critically thinking, this is what the Republicans are scared of. Because

Because if you I saw this article was like, ask a Republican what critical race theory is and see what they say. And they were like, it's racist. It's teaching them white kids to hate being white. And it's like, no, it's not that at all. It's teaching every student how to think critically about race and how race issues have shaped America. But.

But the government doesn't want that to happen because once you start critically thinking about the problem, you start critically thinking about the solution. And the government is never going to give you the tools that you need or going to make sure that you have the tools that you need to overthrow them because they know that they are the root of the problem. So when students, once the future, once the bright minds of tomorrow start thinking about how fucked up

up the government is and start critically thinking about how to ensure that everyone can actually have liberation the government's scared of that they're scared of that because they don't want to talk about how it affects every single every single thing everybody's like you can't bring race into everything it's a part of everything yes i can black communities or communities of minorities do not have clean water

Black communities and communities that mostly have minorities have high cases of asthma because their air is polluted. Black communities and communities of color do not have proper education or infrastructure. They still have potholes in their streets. Black communities and poor communities are the ones who are getting the limited amount of...

voter polls to be able to vote and change these things they're taking away our polls there and then when you don't have those votes you don't have those people representing you in a jury they know exactly what they're doing y'all come on somebody in 1864 asada made some friends with african students who taught her to rethink some things and she's even quoted saying i never forgot that day we were at such an early age to be against communists yet most of us having the faintest idea what communism is

Only a fool would let somebody else tell him who his enemy is, which is true. Like, I definitely remember being in elementary school and it's like, oh, we're fighting this war. Why? Because they're communists. Okay, I really thought...

Like dead ass. This quote is everything because for the longest, communist was just bad. Right. It's associated with being bad because the media, which is controlled by the 1%, is telling you what you should and should not do. The media, which is controlled by the 1%, are the ones that are saying communist is bad, big scary, don't do it.

The media, Fox News, is the reason why there's a whole bunch of dumbass honkies that are like, because they're commies and they have no idea what that means. It just sounds bad. They've turned it into this negative term. And it's like, what does it mean?

Tell me what it means. Because isn't communism basically saying, let's spread, make sure everybody has what they need? It's making sure that everybody has the wealth. Because there's no reason that somebody should have a trillion dollars and the next person is homeless. Right. She puts in her book, and I'm going off of memory here, y'all, so it's not going to be a direct quote, but like,

Most of the time, the solution to our problems are so simple. They're so simple. Why should we not be spreading the wealth? Why should we not make sure that there's universal health care? Why is it that in the richest country in the world, we have homeless people? We have people that are going hungry. We have people that are going without health care. I mean, think about the beginning of COVID. When COVID first started, it was impossible to get a test. But only the riches of the rich were getting those tests. Yeah.

And they had it at access. It was like, let's do this test so we can throw a party. Right.

How is that fair? How is the richest country in the world? How is that an issue? Greed is the issue. She debated greatly with herself and the other few college students about politics and the way that blacks could be liberated in America. And she mainly concluded that in order for this to happen, it was necessary for black people to come together and organize our own structures and our own revolutionary party.

The black revolutionaries must come together and analyze our history. And the black revolutionaries needed to come together and just analyze our own history and its present condition right now. And we need to define our struggles for ourselves. And we need to figure out what work we need to do to make this better. You know what I'm saying? Because depending on the white people. We have the right to define our own destiny. Define our own destiny. The answer is so simple. Give me the right to define my own destiny.

My mom used to say when I was little, like when I even when I was doing homework and stuff like that, the kiss method, you know, the kiss method. Keep it simple, stupid. Yeah, I heard of that. Keep it simple, stupid. Like the answer can be so simple, but you'd rather make it hard. Listen, I thought I was very married to a man who was also committed to the black liberation struggle.

But the marriage was not meant for them. She spent her days at meetings and demonstrations and her evenings reading and preparing for the next day. She wasn't made for the domestic life and they divorced a year later. In 1970, she left for California because she soon realized she needed to broaden her horizons

and wanted to expand what she knew into the black community while in california she was like a sponge she wanted to learn all the struggles in california like native to that area and stuff because it's definitely a different struggle in california than it is over here on the east coast

She wanted to understand the tactics that they used in their revolts and in their revolutions. You know, she chatted with everyone from white liberals to the Red Guard, who was a radical Chinese American youth organization. Pamphlets and readings were available everywhere in the Berkeley area where she was getting introduced to the guerrilla warfare and how the U.S. government was evading other communities while constantly oppressing those within it.

And she was all up in those. Yes. She said later that those pamphlets saved her life. So Callie was already very progressive. Her eyes were open to just how far they were already going in Callie. But Callie is not all of America. You know what I'm saying? And I think even to this day, Callie is...

further progressive than any of the other states. Yeah, it always has been on clean air, on everything. If Cali... Cali's gonna lead the way. Right. But Cali is still not the rest of America. So while she was in Cali, she learned first aid and then she started volunteering once a week as a doctor's assistant at Alcatraz. So this was Alcatraz during the two years that it was occupied by Native Americans, which...

they had a legal right to due to a treaty. If you guys do not know about Native Americans in Alcatraz, it is an amazing piece of history of Natives being fucking resilient and amazing and how it was undercut

once again by the fbi and by fucking nixon honestly we just need to throw out the whole fbi do away with the shit because look up alcatraz put it on your study guide because i feel like y'all gonna have a study guide for tonight and i know we got a couple of white listeners because y'all be following us on instagram add this to your study guide it's okay y'all can come sit down

Yeah. So once again, the FBI and Tricky Dick, they had their own things going underway, trying to once again oppress the people under the thumb of the U.S. government.

One of her most memorable experiences in Cali was when she visited the Black Panther Party headquarters in Oakland. Of course, she and her friends were influenced by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, but she was still a little reluctant to join. Back in New York, the Panther 21 trial was underway, even though the Panther 21 were not guilty of anything. Add this to your history. You want to do a quick brief of what Panther 21 was? So Panther 21 was...

Some of the greatest leaders in the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party were captured by the government. And they said that they were domestic terrorists, that they were conspiring to blow up

to place bombs in New York. And all of this was absolutely turned out to be completely false. Y'all look up this trial, a famous record represented herself in this trial and she won and a huge fuck you to Ralph white, who was a black police officer that went undercover in the Panthers and basically was fucking going back to the FBI and telling them everything that was happening. But in this very infamous, like,

cross-examination between Afeni Shakur and Ralph White she basically has got him to admit that all of the violence that was happening was incited by the police that were undercover in the Black Panther Party not by the actual leaders of the Black Panther Party and she ends the fucking cross-examination by asking him did you portray your community and he has to sit there on the fucking stand and say yes because you did nigga

And for those of y'all who don't know, Afeni is Tupac's mom. So if you wonder why he's so woke and all of that shit, it's because he's like a baby panther.

Yeah, there's actually a book called Baby Panther by Jamal Joseph you guys should read. Asada returned to New York and she decided, yes, I'm going to join the Black Panther Party. And one thing that she quoted that she really liked about the Black Panther Party is that, quote, the Panthers didn't try to sound all intellectual. They simply called a pig a pig. She also felt that they really understood. They made it very clear who the enemy was. Right. The enemy is not white people.

The enemy is capitalists and the imperialistic oppressors, right? That is who the enemy is. That is our pinpoint. That is who is oppressing us constantly.

So she started working with the Black Panther Party with the breakfast program. And the breakfast program, many of you know, is very infamous with the Panther Party because, you know, Panthers love the kids. So basically this meant that they got up at four o'clock in the morning and they cooked breakfast for all of the kids in the neighborhood and made sure that they had warm food in their belly before these kids were sent off to school. Yet the government said they were a terrorist organization. Come on, somebody. Are y'all here? Are y'all here? Are y'all with me?

So she also was assigned to the medical cadre with Joan Bird. Now, Joan was also part of the Panther 21. She was currently out on bond. They were part of the medical cadre. And basically what that was, they were responsible for the health care of the Panthers. They were setting appointments for the Panthers. They were making sure that they were getting to the doctors on time. They were really trying to help the community succeed and thrive and be healthy.

So was it just health care for the Panthers or people in that community like the Breakfast? Glad you asked. They actually ended up acquiring a brownstone with the plans to open up a free clinic for the community. The Black Panther Party, they also had political education classes. Asada argued that there needed to be a systematic approach to political education.

They were reading from the Red Book, but they didn't know who Harriet Tubman, Marcus Harvey, and Nick Turner were. She was not a fan of this, and there was also some misogyny happening, which is also, like, it's rubbing her the wrong way.

I'll show you what that shit. The cracks in the party were beginning to show. No one knew at the time, but just like with the Native Americans and Alcatraz, and just like every other organization fighting for its true freedom and liberation in America, the FBI was fucking shit up. And this is where we get to learn about the COINTELPRO program. Add this to your list. The COINTELPRO program was a secret... How do you even... It was a secret, covert... Hit list. Operation by...

It was a hit list by the government that basically said that their goal was to stabilize and neutralize any threat to the American way. And they basically had a fucking list of people that they were going after. People that included Martin Luther King Jr. They sent him a letter encouraging him to commit suicide. But we all know that he was murdered. They sent...

They were going after the Native Americans. They were going after Malcolm X. They were going after the Black Panther Party and any person that was a part of the liberation movement in any way. And they were calling them terrorist organizations. And because of that, very illegal surveillance, you know, like illegal bugging.

illegal searching, all of those things. Basically the government says, Oh, you know, those things that are illegal, it's legal now because we have a special little project that says that we can. So the government could just decide when, when they want to do that. And then what they were doing with the black Panther party is they were pitting them against each other. They were sending false letters out to leaders of the movement from other leaders, pitting them against each other. Because once again, just like,

Like how white people always do all the way from back from slavery. The way that they keep people oppressed is by having us fight each other. And once you are fighting each other, then your eye is off the enemy. You know, like the right hand is not seeing what the left hand is doing. On this list, they just listed anybody that they suspected. And because of this, a lot of Panther members and revolutionaries had to go underground just so that they weren't being captured by the government.

The COINTELP program actually was found out in 1971 because this was the night of Muhammad Ali's big fight. Some white radicals

into the FBI and they just stole a whole bunch of papers. They just stole a whole bunch of papers because I guess everybody was watching the big fight, you know, Muhammad Ali was fighting. They stole a whole bunch of papers. They had no idea what the papers were. They blasted them. And that's how we found out in 71. It's super. It's hella illegal. They're allowed to use illegal tactics against what they consider to be terrorist organizations. But guess what organizations weren't on the list? I bet y'all know.

The KKK. I bet you know who wasn't on the list. Like, KKK is the founding fathers of America. Why would we? Why would they be a domestic terrorist? Assata ended up leaving the Black Panther Party. But what she started noticing is that she was being followed. She noticed that she was seeing white police officers. She also noticed something very interesting. She was broke. And she wasn't paying her house phone bill. But that house phone was always on. Not only that.

Not they covered the bill for you. They never turned off her bills. She stopped receiving bills in the mail, but it was still on. They said, don't even worry about it. They said, don't even worry about it because we want to see what the hell you got going on up in here. So one day she was about to go home and then one of her friends told her, hey girl, hey girl, don't do that. Don't go home. And she was like, I don't,

She didn't understand what was happening. Her friends were like, look, there are pigs all over your place and your face is plastered all over the newspaper. Your face is everywhere because they wanted her in questioning for a bank robbery.

She was like, a bank robbery? And they were like, yes, girl. They got your face everywhere. So she couldn't even go home that day. She had to immediately go underground. And she had to go to a place where nobody was connected to her, where she absolutely had no connections whatsoever. She made a habit of just remembering landmarks, like never remembering...

street addresses or anything like that and only memorizing important numbers. While underground, she joined the Black Liberation Army. So I think the best description of the Black Liberation Army can be found in Assata's opening statement in 1975. Opening statement to one of her trials. And basically she said, the Black Liberation Army is not an organization. It goes beyond that. It's a concept. It's a people's movement. It's an idea.

The concept of BLA arose because of the political, social, and economic oppression of black people in this country. And where there is oppression, there will be resistance. The BLA is part of the resistance movement. The Black Liberation Army stands for freedom and justice for all people.

And I just think that is... I think it's so reflective of the Black Lives Matter movement today. Like...

It's bigger than just, oh, your Black Lives Matter. Like, if you believe with these ideologies, you are part of it. It's an idea. You know, it's a concept. And I think that, once again, it's being plastered by the media that they're bad. Right. They're evil. They're criminals. So the ignorant mind is going to say, oh, they're bad. They're evil. They're criminals. They also did something with her FBI picture and her picture that was plastered around everywhere. They intentionally darkened it.

So when she went to jail, she met some other girls in jail. She wrote in her book that they were like, oh, girl, come on. Is that what you look like?

Girl, you little itty bitty. And they was like, we thought that you would be big and blacker. Scary looking. Darker. Because that's, and they also did that in the OJ trial. That 1% that controls the media. In 1971, Assata decided to change her name. As of right now, her name was Joanne Chesimaud. She wrote in her autobiography, the name Joanne just irked my nerves.

And...

I feel her, man. I love my first name. I love my first name, but I hate my last name so much. I hate it. It just feels like a slave name. It is. It is not. It feels like it. It is. It is, but I'm saying it feels like it's the name.

No, not it feels like it is. It doesn't matter what it feels like. It is. You know what I'm saying? Like, it is the name of the rapist that had my my grandfather's family captive, you know, and my grandmother's maiden name is Jackson. So it's, you know, like it just names like that. It just names like that. It just.

It feels like I should not be holding on to those. You know what I'm saying? Like, I've been debating so much about dropping it all together. But do I want to go by one name? Do I want to have a different last name? And it's a debate that I have with myself constantly. I don't know. My last name is not...

something that I am very fond of. So I understand just like feeling like my last name is so oppressive. On May 2nd, 1973, 26-year-old Asada and two other Black Panther Party members, Zaid Malik Shakur and Sundiata Akoli, were headed across the New Jersey Turnpike in a two-door Pontiac, supposedly heading to hideout in Philly.

Zade was in the backseat, Asada was in the passenger seat, and Sundiata was driving. Their car was pulled over by State Trooper Harper, who reportedly pulled them over for a broken taillight. But due to all the wiretaps and the surveillance, the troopers already knew who was in the car before they even approached it. Trooper Forrester arrived shortly after. They ordered Sundiata to step out the vehicle so that they could check his ID.

Shortly after this, a shootout begins. Trooper Harper says that after Sundiata stepped out the vehicle, he found a magazine clipped to a gun. And he says that it was at this point that Assata reaches down by her red purse and like by her ankles and she pulls out a 9mm and she shoots at him. And she turns around and shoots out the back window at Trooper Forrester. He says then she gets out the car and she's crouched down beside it and she's firing. On some like supersonic shit. Right, some bad boy shit, you know.

This is what he says begins the shootout that left Assata and Trooper Harper wounded, Zaid dead, and Trooper Forrester was said to be killed execution style by two bullets to the head from his own gun. From his own gun. Assata, however, states that her hands were up in compliance to the officer's request.

After the trooper was killed, Sundiata got back in the car with Asada and Zade's dead body and made it about five miles down the road. He's being chased by three more cop cars. They're like, get the fuck out of the car. He has nowhere to go because the New Jersey Turnpike is a toll road. So they're kind of stalled out. He gets out and he starts running towards the wood.

the cops get over to asada's side of the car they open the door and they drag her out the car by her feet they're kicking her they're punching her they put a gun to her head they said listen bitch tell us where he went and she goes into the direction where she saw nobody go she was like he went that way because the fuck i'm gonna tell you for you know like duh i don't know if you saw this but i saw a thing saying that when i tell you trooper forester wasn't even supposed to be that they told him do not approach the vehicle

because they knew who was inside and there was tapping her and he didn't even say that he was approaching like after that he just left it he didn't say that he was going to anyways and they didn't even find him they didn't know he was on scene until they saw his dead body as they're like cleaning up the thing like it wasn't until that point where he's lying on the grid lying on the ground dead that they realized that

He disobeyed the orders and went after her anyways. Damn, I didn't see that. But it wouldn't surprise me one bit. But when they dragged her out, they pretty much dragged her to a ditch and they were waiting on her to die. And they were like, oh, damn, she's still breathing. She's not dying. Oh, no, she's alive. Oh, I guess now it's time for us to call medic because I guess she's not dying. So finally, they called the medics to come get her.

Asada's in the hospital. She's barely conscious. She's questioning if she's even going to live. And then she was taken to Middlesex General Hospital. They put her in this like fancy ass executive suite because they wanted to make sure that they had round the clock coverage.

guards on her. That's it. They put her in this executive suite and when she arrives, she refuses to speak to them. She refuses to open her eyes. The detectives would come in and they would try to pry her eyes open. They were beating her. They were torturing her. They were doing everything they could trying to get her to speak. But every single day, she refused to speak to them. Just those small acts of resistance every single step of the way is just...

So admirable. The state troopers, they were disgusting to her. They would go on rotating shifts and she said that they would salute each other with like the Hitler salute. Mm-hmm.

The state troopers would be torturing her. They would point their guns at her while she is literally locked up, hands and foot locked to the bed. And they would torture her by like clicking the safety on and off of their gun saying that they were going to shoot her. They would fuck around and play like Russian roulette and just see if she's going to fucking die. And...

Niggas ain't got time. Oh, my God. You have nothing better to do than to torture a woman fighting for her life. Nothing. To the point where one time this nurse, she talks about her book about this nurse that basically gave her the panic button. And she was like, anytime you need it, push this button. And the police were like, oh, no, she doesn't need that. And the nurse was like, yes, she does. And so it got to the point where every time that they got like two feet in her bed, panic button. You gonna come close to me? Panic button.

She was shot three times, once in the back, once in the chest, and once in the armpit while her arms were raised. Because of the armpit shot, her median nerve was severed in her right arm, and she became almost immediately paralyzed. Her clavicle was shattered, and the bullet was lodged in her chest so close to her heart that they could not operate to remove the bullet. She still has the bullet to this day.

Her lung was filled with fluid and that paralyzed arm, they just like would not give her an answer about what that nerve damage was. All they said was undetermined nerve damage. She asked if she was going to be okay. They were like, hmm.

Maybe, maybe yes, maybe no, don't know. So in the hospital, they're trying to arraign Asada, make her plead guilty or not guilty. And the judge starts rambling off charges. He's like, oh, you're resisting lawful arrest, battery of a state trooper, taking possession of a state trooper's gun, assault with intent, illegal possession of a firearm. And then they're asking her how she would like to plea. And the whole time she was like, I'd like to have my lawyer present. And the judge was like, that's not necessary. And she was like, sure it is. I'd like to have my lawyer present.

but the judge just ignored her and he's like all right submit a not guilty plea and in case y'all didn't know it's fucking illegal she did not enter a plea he entered one for her and after that she was taken to the women's section of the workhouse in middlesex county that's where she was placed in the solitary confinement she had run-ins with the warden who she named miss bitch but y'all gonna have to read her autobiography to get that story

Yeah, it's a good story, y'all. So on July 4th, 1973, Assata's aunt and her lawyer, which is the same person, Evelyn, she was able to sneak in a tape recorder into the workhouse where Assata made the tape to my people. And basically, it was a recording that was broadcasted over the radio system where she spoke directly to black folks.

She used this speech to talk to black people and to tell them what was going on. Y'all, for the life of me, I cannot find a recording of this. I'm telling you, they have swiped. So you cannot, and literally the only time I found a girl red in the protest. But listen, it is one of the most beautiful speeches. And in these are some of my selected pieces of To My People. In it, she quotes, she states, quote,

She says, She says,

They say we steal, but it was not we who stole millions of black people from the continent of Africa. We were robbed of our language, of our gods, of our culture, of our human dignity, of our labor, and of our lives. There is and always will be, until every black man, woman, and child is free, a liberation army.

The main function of the Liberation Army at this time is to create good examples to the struggle for black freedom and to prepare for the future. We must defend ourselves and let no one disrespect us. We must gain our liberation by any means necessary. It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win.

We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains. We are back this week with Hood Adjacent Tees. Y'all, I have told you time and time again how much I love Hood Adjacent Tees. Their CEO and director of dopeness, Patricia, is over there hooking y'all up. Have y'all checked out the website yet?

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Now, back to the show. ♪

Like, as we said, you know, things were hot for the Black Panther Party and even people in the Black Liberation Army, leaders of those things, one of them being Assata Shakur. And they were trying to pin as much shit on them as they could. Assata said, if a black woman did it, they said it was me. Yep, that's what they were trying to say. She had a lot of cases and a lot of charges against her. On July 19th, 1973, she was sent to New York for her arraignment in the Queens Bank robbery case.

She was moved to Middlesex County Courthouse Jail, where she was the first and last woman to be housed in an all-male facility. Where they do that at?

put a how do you put a woman in a male's a men's prison and then they they said they did it because of the proximity of it to all of the court houses but like every other girl from the other prison made it to the courthouse a male's facility does not even have the items needed to take care of a woman that is incarcerated but

I guess when you think about it, they didn't give a fuck about her. And that's what's so shitty about it. Like, you have decided that I am a prisoner. You have decided to house me here. So you should be giving me the basic necessities to live.

Right. So while she was there, she was given a dirty blanket and one sheet. She had female guards stationed outside of her cell at all times, watching her with fluorescent lights on that they would not turn off for her safety, they say. On October 1973, jury selection started for her murder case for the shootout. 83% of the population knew who Asada was and 70% of them automatically thought she was guilty.

One person literally said during jury selection that if she's black, she's guilty. Assata was frustrated with all the hoops that someone had to go through to get a fair trial. Finally, the judge determined that the jury would have to be picked from Morris County because he couldn't get an unbiased jury. Turns out Morris County had an even lower black and minority population. She waited until it was time to go on trial and she was moved again, this time to Rikers Island.

The treatment of people at Rikers is honestly... Add it to your study guide. They treat people very shitty, okay? And Asada talks about being strip-searched and...

Internal search, and she had to do this any time she entered and exited the jail, or even if she didn't leave the jail. Like, it's just, she was like, any time they could humiliate her, they did. Full cavity searches. First case was about to go to trial for the Bronx bank robbery, and they were going to trial on December 3rd, 1973, along with Kamal Siddiqui. She, of course, had her aunt as her lawyer, Evelyn Williams, that represented her. Now, Evelyn requested more time to prepare for this case,

because she was not just preparing for this case. She was also preparing for a murder trial and I don't know, every other trial that she, every other false trial that they had against Assata. They asked for the trial to be extended. The judge denies her this. And of course, this is completely unjust. The lawyers are going from trial to trial in the courts and they hardly have time to sleep, let alone prepare. Evelyn was burnt, okay? She was working nonstop. She was working for free because this is her niece, right?

she could hardly take on any other cases that could actually pay her because she was working working working the U.S. government was just railroading Assata and railroading Kamau and so finally they told both of their lawyers they said all right what we gonna do y'all sit down and act as counsel we're gonna represent ourselves because you have a right to represent yourself

So that's what they did. And as soon as the jury pool came in, Kamau and Asada, they started just screaming and yelling at the jury that this judge was appointed by Nixon. They're trying to railroad us. This judge has stuff to do with Watergate and is appointed by Nixon and basically telling the jury everything that was actually really going on, the real, real of what was going on. Of course, the judge didn't want to hear that. Put them in contempt of court.

The next day that he was like, all right, can y'all behave? They were like, sure we can. And as soon as the jury poll came in, this, this judge is trying to railroad us. He has to do with Watergate. He's trying to, he's been appointed by Nixon, all of this stuff, every single time.

I mean, the case was a shit show. The case was an absolute shit show. So Asada and Kamau were put in contempt of court together. They were kept in a pretty cold cell and they basically were listening to their trial from the cell that they were kept together. During that time, they became very close.

They were talking about politics, talking about religion. And soon the topic of intercourse came up. And of course, with that topic comes the topic of children. And she was like, ah, do I want to risk it? Like, do I want to become pregnant? Do I want to bring a child into all of this? What do I want to bring a child into all this for? You know, this world is already unjust. Like, the world is already full of everybody's suffering. Why would I want to add to that? He said something to her like...

our children are always going to suffer. The thing is, the children always represent ourselves.

You're looking towards a struggle that has to continue. The only hope is to reproduce and to bring children into this world that are going to keep the fight, especially when it may seem like there's no tomorrow. This world is full of suffering, but because people like Assata and Kamau are present, the world's a little bit better. It's at least a little bit better for somebody else that they bring into this world to, I don't know, to hopefully make the world kinder. So they...

ended up having intercourse. Like she said, she said, I let nature take its course. And I really like this because it kind of reminds me of like, for the first time in her story, since she was captured by the US government, it felt like her body was her own. When Sisters Who Kill began, an online store was the furthest thing from our minds. I mean,

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rocketmoney.com slash sisters because she's being poked and prodded by these doctors that don't really have her permission you know what I'm saying yeah and when you think of black women like especially in America like so many times their body is not their own like think about the Ruby McCollum case and these laws that even back to slavery that said that women were just property that white men could do whatever they wanted to them and for that moment at least

I like to imagine in my own personal world that her body felt like her own, that she had complete control, even in this like sea of uncertainty that she was in, you know, that's how I like to think of it. So that happened and the trial continued on. It was a fucking circus. Evelyn got contempt of court because she ended up walking out because it was a shit show. Finally, they come in. They're so excited. And the lawyers tell them both,

It's a hung jury. It's a hung jury. So that means that it has to go to retrial. That also means that they get a new judge. And it also means that the defense, Evelyn, could figure out what to do. Their strategy was. And guess what? The prosecutors realized

literally showed that they had nothing in their hands no evidence they had phony witnesses and they pretty much had no case whatsoever and of course of course they're like uh duh while trying to figure out their new strategy asada and evelyn got into a disagreement

Because remember, they're not just client and lawyer. They family too. And so sometimes it's hard to work with family. Evelyn ended up getting herself removed from that particular case. And Assata reached out to Flo Kennedy. I'm y'all.

add her to your study group. I've got a lot of work to do. Because she is like a feminist, a lawyer, a civil rights activist. Like, come on, y'all keep up. Y'all should know who this is. And Aflo was like, look, I am, you know, a political lawyer. And Asada was like, I need a political lawyer.

lawyer not a trial lawyer and so flo ended up agreeing to be her legal advisor while asada represented herself and guess what they were both acquitted asada then returned to morristown jail where she was finally able to see a television for the first time in a long time and she also took up the up the knack for crocheting so it's january 1974 and the jury selection process is beginning on the shootout case and once again the jury selection was a shit show

The police, they wrote this book called Target Blue, which is basically what it sounds like. And it was a book of who the pigs were targeting. In the text, they said Assata was the mother hen of the Black Liberation Army. And they spread lies about the Black Liberation Army, the Black Panther Party, and anybody who was involved in the movement to struggle civil rights. Just they said, fuck them and they're evil. Right. Right. And they were asking people if they read them and they were like, yeah, I read it. And they weren't immediately dismissed immediately.

from being a part of the jury pool but she was supposed to have a fair try right okay sure yeah yeah that's great asada started feeling sick she's unable to hardly do 10 sit-ups she's tired in the morning she's exhausted throughout the day she knew she was pregnant she goes to the pregnant doctor and he checked her with dirty hands and asked her for a few urine samples he says that she probably had an intestinal infection that was going around

It was not until she met back with Evelyn that she knew for sure she was pregnant.

The prison doctor didn't even tell her what was up. After confronting him as to why he did not inform her that she was impregnant, he was dismissive and told her that she needed to abort the baby. He then told her that she was high risk to miscarry. And he said that if she sees a blood clot when she pees, then that baby is gone. Like, he did not care about her. He did not try and help her. He did not offer her anything. He was just like, you're on your own with this and you should just get rid of it anyways because...

Who wants to deal with it? Right. Right. Because once again, black women are treated like shit by white doctors and the government definitely doesn't want more black people. Evelyn had to put in court document after court document to request that Assata be seen by a black doctor of her own choosing.

Every time the black OBGYN checked her, the court had to get a white OBGYN to sign off on what they found. He concluded that as of right now, she was high risk and needed to be put on bed rest. Her trial was postponed and Sundiata was tried alone, found guilty and given 25 years life with the possibility of parole. On April 26th, she was back up for trial but in a different case, this one the attempted murder of two police officers.

Assata waived her right for extradition and in November 1974 she was dismissed on all charges. Why? Because she didn't do it. Because they didn't have no evidence. Nothing. On September 6, 1975 she began her trial for the kidnapping of James Freeman and was acquitted in December 16. Why? Because it was a bunch of baloney. On January 5th she was up for her Queen's bank robbery charge. She was represented by Evelyn, Stanley Cohen, and she still acted as her own co-counsel.

On January 16th, she was acquitted. Why? Yes. Because she didn't do it. Assata did end up giving birth to her beautiful baby girl who was being taken care of by her grandmother at the time. And her grandmother was constantly making sure that Assata could see her daughter as many times as possible. So the retrial, Assata's retrial by herself for the shootout did not come back up until January 17th, 1977. Wow.

By this time, of course, like we said before, Sundiata had already been convicted for shooting and killing Trooper Forrester. Now, the trial has been accurately described in many of writings as illegal lynching, and that is the only way that I can continue to describe it because it was a farce. It was a shit show. It was theater of the absurd.

Asada had a strong team of attorneys, including, of course, Evelyn Williams, Stanley Cohen, Stuart Ball, Lewis Myers, William Kushner, and Lennox Hines. The judge denied Asada's request to co-counsel. Judge also denied letting any of the lawyers read what Asada wrote as her opening statement. The strong team began to backfire because, you know, they were like,

too many cooks in the kitchen and also the lawyers offices across the street from the courthouse they were being bugged of course and when they asked for the judge to investigate it the judge denied the request to investigate the bugging of their offices so

They needed their own forensic teams and they needed doctors to analyze all of the evidence and testify against the state. Now, this also cost money. And so they had to go and get special requests for the money to pay for these people, as well as find people that are willing to testify against the state. No one could be trusted because they found out that some experts would work for the defense and then they would turn around and they'd tell the prosecution everything.

Students in the community, they were helping, you know, they were getting involved. They were showing demonstrations. They were holding down the telephones. They were printing and distributing newspapers, anything that they could do to help on the street. One of her lawyers, Stanley Cohen, found an investigator that was like owed him a favor. And he was like, finally, I have an investigator that is going to be able to help us. And then he was also making headway on finding a forensic scientist to help as an expert.

That was the last conversation that Assata had with him because the next time that she heard about Stanley, she got a phone call saying that his body was found dead in his home with signs of trauma. If you look in the newspapers about his death, they say that he died of natural causes. Now, no one knows for sure how he died.

And honestly, no one probably ever will know for sure how he died. But what we do know is that in his home office, he had notes and mapped out the strategy for them going to trial. And all of that paperwork was gone. Once again, they're at jury selection. And the people say, yes, we've heard of Asada. And they promise that they can be fair and impartial while listening to all of the evidence.

Turns out the jury had like two people that were friends of state troopers and other people actually had different relationships to state troopers. And this reminds me on another episode, I skipped over it. And it's like briefly said in one of our other episodes. And you asked the question, how can you promise to be unbiased when you're not aware of your own personal bias?

And I think that that is why it is so important to be truly tried by a jury of our peers. You asked that question and doing this research, it made me think about that question that you asked. Yeah, I think, I think now in every case is going to come up like with any biased jury. How can you pick a good jury?

When you can't you can't account for what you don't know or what you don't aren't willing to look inside yourself for. You know, jury selection is not a self-reflective process. It's a judgment process. And that's why so many people are put behind bars because they were they were not put on a fair trial. They were put on a trial like this one, which was a shit show.

If they even make it to trial because they're usually scared out of it. Right. But they were like, we have to go to trial because it is if you are found guilty, if you go to trial, that is the only way that we can appeal. You know what I'm saying? The prosecution argued that it was a side of who shot at Trooper Harper initiating the shootout. And the defense argued that it was Zaid who actually started it. And remember, Zaid died during the shootout.

Even though Sundiata had already admitted it was him, New Jersey law states that if you aid and abet the murder, you can be charged with the murder. Assata tried to get this out of federal court but was denied. On March 15th, Assata took the stand. She stated that she neither shot at the troopers or even handled a weapon. She could not explain how she had three magazines of ammo and 16 live shells in her purse and admitted to possessing an ID with the name Justine Henderson but denied all other aliases that they said she used.

The biggest piece of evidence was... I mean, it showing up in her purse sounds like a setup to me. Yeah. Even if it was, the medical exam... Like, even if you did find the shells in my purse, the medical evidence that's about to come up... I don't know how you can argue with that shit, but they did, I guess. So, the ME basically was like... The ME stated that the evidence shows that the shot in her right arm would have left her unable to pull the trigger.

Also, the wounds that she obtained under her arm and chest left her instantly paralyzed and that that shot could have only happened if both of her arms were raised, as she said they were because she said her hands were up in compliance. The pathologist said that there was no conceivable way that the first bullet could have hit Shakur's clavicle if her arm was down. And, on top of all of that, there was no gunshot residue found on Asada.

Assata was facing eight charges, four of which were assault. There was atrocious assault and battery, assault on a police officer acting in the line of duty, assault with a deadly weapon, and assault with intent to kill. She also was facing first-degree murder of Trooper Forrester, second-degree murder of Zaid Shakur, illegal possession of a weapon, and armed robbery related to Forrester's service revolver.

After 24 hours of deliberating, the jury found her guilty on all eight counts. When Assata heard this, she said, I'm ashamed that I have even taken part in this trial. The jury was racist and they convicted a woman with her hands up. The judge told the bailiff to remove the prisoner and she responded that the prisoner will walk away on her own feet. She was sentenced to life in prison plus 33 years. And I just, it just doesn't make sense to me how you could accuse, they, because they also said that she was,

Shot him with his own gun. So you're telling me that the woman had to be shot and then with her paralyzed right arm Instantly paralyzed right arm. I think even with the New Jersey law She doesn't necessarily have to be the one who shot him I think it's like if she if she shot off a single round and she's part of the aiding and bedding and can be charged with the murder But there's no residue on her. There's no gunshot residue. I

So I still don't understand how y'all came back and said... There was no gunshot residue. There was no gunshot residue found on her fingers.

So she also had some other cases that ended up being dismissed. The murder of Richard Nelson was ended up being dismissed. The robbery of the hotel ended up being dismissed. He also had some other cases such as kidnapping a drug lord because lack of evidence and all of the evidence that they did have was once again, phony baloney. On November 2nd, 1979,

Assata Shakur escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility for Women and went back underground. Oh, the government was looking for her ass, but they could not find her. The community band together and you could see that she had so many supporters. Supporters would put on their, hang up on their houses signs that said Assata Shakur is welcome here while she was living underground, going from place to place and...

searching her way to becoming a free woman. And she tells this story in her autobiography about how like a week before she escaped from prison, her grandmother called her or visit her and was like, I had a dream that you were free. I had a dream that you were free. And we were in our home in Jamaica. Premonitions. And you were free. And you know, when, you know,

when your grandma have a dream, when your grandma be having a dream, she'd be knowing. And then she says in another interview that like the day before she escaped from prison, her grandmother called her. And of course she wasn't telling her grandma that she was about to escape from prison. Who would do that? Her grandmother called her and her grandma knew she was like, don't get used to that place. Don't you get used to that place? And she didn't. Yeah. And she was like, that was, that was my sign that I was doing the right thing. She was doing the right thing. And she,

The FBI was looking for her. They put a bounty on her head for $1 million. But they couldn't find her. So finally, in 1984, Asada Shakur resurfaced. But she was now in Cuba.

She was granted political asylum by Fidel Castro in Cuba, where she remains to this day. So in 2013, they put 66-year-old Assata Shakur on the top 10 FBI most wanted terrorists. To this day, she...

Which is years later. This shootout that they have her on here for happened in 71. In 2013, you put her as the top 10 most wanted terrorist. They still want her and then they upped the reward money from $1 million to $2 million for her bounty. Sundiata is still in prison after almost five decades. Like we said before, he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility parole after he served 25 years.

He has been denied parole eight times, most recently denied parole in May of 2021. He is currently 84 years old.

He is currently suffering from heart disease, emphysema, and has early stages of dementia. He teaches in the prison for the past about 30 years. And just about every time that he is in front of a parole board, he is denied because of the same pretext. They say that, oh, he hasn't done enough psychological counseling. They say that he doesn't fully admit to his crime or that he hasn't adequately apologized for it.

Clearly this man needs to be released from prison because he's 84 years old. Everybody says that there's no way that he's a threat to society. But something that I do admire is that even still to this day, it's those small acts of resistance that make a difference. Now it's time for... Well, I'm not black. I'm old-fashioned.

I ain't do it, but if I did, honestly, she ain't do it. And if she did, she did it the right way. That's exactly what I was about to say. Like, there was absolutely nothing that I would change about her approach. She says, like, in that, to my people, I didn't read it, but she says, like, oh, I should have known better for being on the turnpike because the turnpike is where they were always harassing black folks, always harassing minorities. So, yeah.

Yeah, but like the thing that I admire about Asada, especially just going deep into her story, is that she was a sponge. And she reminds me of like water, like just willing to change and willing to adapt and never thinking that, oh, my way is the right way. Always willing to debate somebody, but not debating to be mean, but debating to grow, to understand, to change.

Hopefully somebody could help change her perspective so that she can become a better person to help the next person become a better person. And I see that throughout her entire her entire journey of to being a revolutionary, because she also states like a revolutionary is not born overnight. A revolutionary comes is born and is made through through the mud, through the struggle, through struggle.

being in the ghetto through oppression. That is how a revolutionary is made. And she had to grow and find herself to find who she was in this movement. And it's something that's really great about her. Okay. And then next we have parole or no parole. Oh, parole or no parole. Here's what I have to say about parole or no parole. Fuck you. Y'all can't hold her. Fuck you. Y'all can't hold her. But

There are so many political prisoners that are still in prison today that should be out. There are so many political prisoners. The thing, like, you made Juneteenth a national holiday, but you're banning critical race theory. You know what I would have loved for Juneteenth is for you to pardon people

political prisoners that have been fighting constantly for the liberation of black people or for those that are fighting for the liberation of their people but one thing that she also said is that it's the people the people free us so it's it's it's our job we should be fucking hitting up the governors of these states and saying hey why is this person still in prison hey this is a

Like, it's really... And another thing that I loved about her is that she, in her book, I is always lowercase. And court is spelled with a K. America is spelled with a K when you're reading her book, y'all. I know that there's some bookworms in here. So, like, read it so we can get together and talk about it. But...

We are nothing without the community that shapes us as black people. We are nothing without our community. We're nothing without our brothers and sisters. I think I really just have an appreciation for her whole journey. Like she really went from this ignorant by default, you know what I mean? Person to just being enlightened and grown throughout the world. I know me and you were having a conversation where you, Asada, she mentions that, you know,

uh there's a turning point in every revolutionary leader's life where you know they knew at this point things had to change and at this point is when they you know their eyes got open to the change of things and we were having an interesting conversation because I was telling you know I've always known but it's possibly in my upbringing upbringing you know yeah I mean but the thing is like you you may have always been aware but what

radicalized you like I've always been aware but when was it I was always aware of my blackness I was always aware of my mother's blackness and her journey I was always aware of who the Black Panther Party was but I think everybody throughout their journey and something that Assata realizes that like you can't just call yourself a revolutionary you are made into a revolutionary

And so what, what is it? And I think we just all need to think about it. Cause I don't, you may have the answer. I know I have my answer. Like, but what is it? What was that turning point where you were really like, I've heard that this shit was fucked up, but I'm actually experiencing this shit was fucked up. Not some, you know, it's not always just like the first time that somebody says some racist shit to you. When is some time you were like, wow, this is unjust and unfair because I'm regular degular living, you know? Um,

A revolutionary is made. It's not born. So what radicalized y'all? I don't think I could...

I was telling, this is the conversation we're having, is that I couldn't, I can't pinpoint what radicalized me. Like, I feel like I've always known. And like, so you said you could pinpoint, and I was also in our discussion saying, and it could be because I was raised in this sense, because I've always been raised in a sense of black pride. I wasn't allowed white Barbie dolls. I didn't have white books. I always had black books. I had a grandmother who worked at a high school and they were constantly doing black

college tours, but they made sure to include HBCUs. And she was taking me on that since I was in third grade. And then also on my other side, I've got my granddad, who's a civil rights activist. You know, he was the first black undergraduate to go to university of Tennessee. So, um,

it's always been surrounding me and I've always been aware, even in playing soccer, like a white sport and I'm on an all black team, white in America, world sport everywhere else. But yeah, like, you know, experiencing things from, it's just always, I feel like I've always been so aware that there was no necessary turning point. So I decided to dig a little deeper and I went and asked my granddad, you know, cause I also don't necessarily, I wouldn't call myself a revolutionary either. You know what I'm saying?

And so I asked my granddad, what point was it for him? And he was like, you know, back then all his teachers were black. And he was like, growing up in a black school, they taught you black history. He said he was in the fifth grade and his teacher was talking to him. And she was basically just like.

The Constitution says we're supposed to be equal, but we are not equal. And she broke down terms where like this is set up to where you can fall through the cracks this way and this, you know, and really broke it down for him. And he was like,

Oh, I see. And he was like, it was also a time then where racism was so in your face. You know, it was like we were divided by the water fountains. You couldn't eat here. You couldn't sit in the front of the bus. So it was you got sick of it. He was in high school doing sit ins and integrating his high school, you know. So he was like it was kind of like everybody was doing it. And we kind of talked about it was reflective of the black live movement now, right?

Like, it's so in your face with all these police shootings. It's like, fuck if I'm not going to get out any streets and mark because you're just sick and tired of it. You know what I mean? And I don't know. I just I like seeing her growth into this person. Right. And I think we all need to think about what is that moment for you personally, you know, and because it there has like I said, like it has to be a moment where like we're you're always aware of racism, right?

What are you, what, I'm not saying you in particular, Tassie, but like, what are y'all actively doing every single day? What is your, what is your resistance every single day? Your act of resistance. And how are you also educating someone else so that they can have their acts of resistance? And I think that what she said about students is so important.

because it just reminds me of, you know, I was teaching this past year and elementary teaching is not for me, but I was teaching at this very small school

private school that's ran like a um I think it's officially a non-profit and the lady that's over the school she's black and all the students are black and it's a very private school and it was it's amazing like if y'all got a big check like y'all write this woman a check because she is doing the work that like she it's not through the school board because um they get outside funding because she wants to teach the way that she wants to teach and

It's a small school and I had it was me teaching with three little black girls. Oh, we was lit in there. And even though like I've always had a black teacher other than when I was in boarding school because my mom pretty much made sure of it. It was so lit to be teaching these third and fourth graders online.

about feminism in the early stages of feminism and what it was like to be a black feminist, what it was like to be a black woman. And then seeing their gears turn and seeing them watching the, seeing them learn that Columbus day isn't fucking Columbus day, that he was a thief, seeing them learning that, right. It's like, let me give y'all true. Seeing them learning about the time that Shirley Chisholm was stabbed, truly understand and digest Chisholm.

kids are smarter kids are smarter than y'all give them credit and I think that like Asada was really on to something when she was talking about the education system like kids are smarter than you give them credit and they have the they're they too are like a sponge that can soak up knowledge and once they know something they know it and when they know it to be true and they don't have to do the relearning at an older age think about how much work they could get done you know

So I think it's something that we as black folks, like, especially in our age group, there is some of us that are already extremely radical. There's some of us that are still under that thumb of oppression. Then there's some of the bourgeoisie negroes that think that they don't need to be worried about the struggle anyways, which... So it's like...

And I just think that we have to just come together and like she said, I mean, she writes in her book and we said it earlier, come together and have a true, honest conversation about our history, about our culture, about our struggles so that we can come together and overcome. Somebody hit me up on TikTok asking to read their comment and all of y'all who hit me up on TikTok, y'all be like, oh, I put my comment under this name. Please read it. I'd never, ever see that name ever. So yeah.

Thanks, Audrey. I can't find you. I tried. We love you. Young Agbo. Love you. I appreciate it. This one says, Obsessed and I don't even do true crime by Miss Caro. Says, I came across this podcast and shared with a friend of mine who loves true crime. She hit me back up saying this was the best thing she's heard in a while.

So, I stuck my big toe in and listened to the pod myself. I can't stop binging! It really feels like we're sitting and kiki-ing around at the kitchen table.

Since then, I've shared with more people. Keep it and the authentic feel up. We are loving it. And I love you. That's right. This is for everybody. This is true crime for everybody. And tell a friend. Tell a friend. We're trying to get on the map. You know what I'm saying? Okay, so this review is from Indie M. Smith.

Says, I'm a new fan. This show is sort of a mix between true crime, but with the familiarity and banter of one of my favorite podcasts to read. I live in Atlanta, so many of the references they make about the city are close to home and make me laugh. I can't wait to listen to the new episode because I've already been to all the previous ones. I've never written a review on a podcast before, but I had to show them love because I love the off. And I love the authenticity and really hope they blow up.

I literally was just telling Mariah last week, we are a cost between crime junkies and the read. Like, I feel like that's the best way to describe it. I'm trying to get as big as crime junkie and the read. Shit. They got more money than we ever will. Right.

But I feel like we keep like, especially on Twitter, we keep being brought up with those names. So like, I'm going to go in and claim it. And that's the field that we're supposed to be in. And y'all just keep telling our friends so that we can be in that field. Exactly. All right, y'all. This is the end of the show. So make sure that y'all keep in contact with us. It's Juneteenth. So if y'all feel so for the white people that are listening to the show, if you feel like you need to go ahead and give some reparations, you can go ahead and send us a cash app.

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Donate to a black educator because they are working hard to dismantle what the board is telling them they should and should not teach when they are trying to teach true history. Donate to a black podcast that is talking about black true crime and how the system is treating our brothers and sister in the prison system like whores.

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