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In the long run, the people are our only appeal. The only ones who can free us are ourselves.

Assata Shakur

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Assata Shakur
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: July 14
Activist
Jamaica
Queens
Joanne Deborah Byron
People
Appeal
Appeals
Ones
Free
Running
Long

More quotes by Assata Shakur

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Peace is a rare gift. Peace of mind, peaceful sleeps, and peaceful spirits are all luxuries that few rebels can ever afford.
Assata Shakur
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Unless you are addressing the issues people are concerned about and contributing positive direction, they'll never support you. The first thing the enemy tries to do is isolate revolutionaries from the masses of people, making us horrible and hideous monsters so that our people will hate us
Assata Shakur
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I worked, studied, mothered and continued to be an activist. I found that Cuba was much different from the US its government was genuinely trying to erase racism.
Assata Shakur
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The abnormal, the sick, the vicious have become more and more interwoven into the violent culture of the United States. Into the way news is seen, into the way movies are seen.
Assata Shakur
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We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice.
Assata Shakur
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The U.S. doesn't recognize the laws of Cuba. They can kidnap anybody and bring them back to the States to face the so-called justice system. There's no telling what the U.S. government will do to me. I'm in constant danger I guess I've gotten used to it.
Assata Shakur
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Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.
Assata Shakur
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My life wasn't beautiful and creative before I became politically active. My life was totally changed when I began to struggle.
Assata Shakur
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I think that in order to struggle you have to be creative. In my life, creativity has been something that has sustained me it awoke my spiritual struggle.
Assata Shakur
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The US has attacked countries like Grenada, Panama, Libya... the list of victims of US terrorism is almost infinite. And the US government's participation in torture, whether in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile... is well-documented and widely known.
Assata Shakur
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To become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.
Assata Shakur
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Any community seriously concerned with its own freedom has to be concerned about other people's freedom as well. The victory of oppressed people anywhere in the world is a victory for Black people. Each time one of imperialism's tentacles is cut off we are closer to liberation.
Assata Shakur
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People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows.
Assata Shakur
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We need to be weapons of mass construction, weapons of mass love. It's not enough just to change the system. We need to change ourselves.
Assata Shakur
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My fantasy of Cuba was that everybody was going to be going around looking like Fidel, with green uniforms - and it was very different from my vision of how Cuba was going to be.
Assata Shakur
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Black Revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. We are shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quetin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us.
Assata Shakur
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Dreams and reality are opposites. Action synthesizes them.
Assata Shakur
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Racism had grown out of slavery and exploitation and was very hard to eradicate quickly and completely.
Assata Shakur
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There's something about approaching 50 that's very liberating. Political struggle has always been a 24-hour-a-day job for me. I felt I could never take time out for myself. Now I feel I owe it to myself to develop in ways I've been putting off all my life.
Assata Shakur
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Love is contraband in Hell, cause love is an acid that eats away bars. But you, me, and tomorrow hold hands and make vows that struggle will multiply. The hacksaw has two blades. The shotgun has two barrels. We are pregnant with freedom. We are a conspiracy.
Assata Shakur