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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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Assata Shakur
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: July 14
Activist
Jamaica
Queens
Joanne Deborah Byron
Life
Totally
Active
Became
Wasn
Changed
Struggle
Creative
Politically
Beautiful
Began

More quotes by Assata Shakur

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Where there is oppression, there will be resistance.
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.
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I think that any time anybody gets rid of oppression, intervention, exploitation, cruelty - that's positive.
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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People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.
Assata Shakur
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Being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression, otherwise I would have been free to be so much more.
Assata Shakur
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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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People are really beginning to see the mechanisms of imperialism. When colonialism existed people could see colonialism. When racial segregation existed in its apartheid form, people could see the whites only signs. But it's much more difficult to see the structures of neo-imperialism, neo-colonialism, neo-slavery.
Assata Shakur
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I must confess that waltzes do not move me, I guess I hummed the blues too early, and spent too many midnights out wailing to the rain.
Assata Shakur
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I'm truly blessed, because many of my friends come to Cuba. They like it here-they can relax and not worry about drive-by shootings or getting raped.
Assata Shakur
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I had to adjust to living in a Third World country, which means that things people in the U.S. take for granted-like hot running water whenever you turn on the tap-are not always available.
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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I think it's really hard to plan if you don't believe you can implement those plans.
Assata Shakur
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The attitudes of many police organizations were extremely negative to the prospect of Rap, and many officials weren't afraid to say that they were against it. To them, Rappers were just criminals waiting to get caught.
Assata Shakur
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Part of being a revolutionary is creating a vision that is more humane. That is more fun, too. That is more loving. It's really working to create something beautiful.
Assata Shakur
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If you're deaf, dumb, and blind to what's happening in the world, you're under no obligation to do anything. But if you know what's happening and you don't do anything but sit on your ass, then you're nothing but a punk
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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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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This planet is a wonderful place, but a vulnerable place.
Assata Shakur
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We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice.
Assata Shakur