Episode Description: On May 2, 1973, Assata Shakur and fellow Black Revolutionary activists, Sundiata Acoli, and Zayd Malik Shakur– who is not related to Assata– were stopped by New Jersey state troopers on the New Jersey turnpike for a quote-on-quote faulty tail light. The three comrades are activists within the Black Liberation Movement, and every move they made was highly surveilled by police forces– the pigs. At this point, it was common for anyone remotely related to the struggle for Black Liberation to be unjustly convicted with just about any crime to get liberationists off the street and into jail. Assata, Sundiata, and Zayd are no exceptions. And yet, how did a supposed tail light infraction end up with Assata Shakur being the first woman on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List?
Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of gun violence and murder.