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I had grown up at a time when people were being lynched, being attacked with water hoses. Becoming active and learning a different way of viewing my life was a healthy reaction to what I was seeing every day.

Assata Shakur

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Assata Shakur
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: July 14
Activist
Jamaica
Queens
Joanne Deborah Byron
Life
Becoming
Lynched
People
Learning
Viewing
Seeing
Attacked
Water
Reaction
Different
Reactions
Every
Grown
Way
Active
Time
Healthy
Hoses

More quotes by 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.
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I don't have to live up to that Superwoman myth. I can cry and be human and lean on people who take care of me. That can be very liberating.
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Every person that steps up and commits to social change helps solidify the black movement cause. It is not easy for those who fill in the leader role.
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Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.
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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.
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When you go through all your life processing and abusing your hair so it will look like the hair of another race of people then you are making a statement and the statement is clear
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Dreams and reality are opposites. Action synthesizes them.
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I believe in life. And I have seen the death parade
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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.
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We had to learn that we're beautiful. We had to relearn something forcefully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the importance of coming together and being active
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The government recognized immediately that Rap music has enormous revolutionary potential and politicians immediately came together to end it.
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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.
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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.
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I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the U.S. government’s policy towards people of color.
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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I believe in living, I believe in birth, I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth and I believe that a lost ship, steered by tired, sea sick sailors, can still be guided home to port
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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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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.
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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