Assata Shakur famous quotes

Hip Hop can be a very powerful weapon to help expand young people's political and social consciousness. But just as with any weapon, if you don't know how to use it, if you don't know where to point it, or what you're using it for, you can end up shooting yourself in the foot or killing your sisters or brothers.
-- Assata Shakur

#Brother #Powerful #Feet

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

#Thinking #People #Tolerance

Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.
-- Assata Shakur

#People #World #Moral

I advocate revolutionary changes...an end to capitalist exploitation, the abolition of racist policies, the eradication of sexism and the elimination of political repression. If that is a crime, then I am totally guilty
-- Assata Shakur

#Political #Racist #Revolutionary

Only the strong go crazy. The weak just go along.
-- Assata Shakur

#Strong #Crazy #Weak

I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless, robots who protect them and their property.
-- Assata Shakur

#War #Lying #Heartless

No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.
-- Assata Shakur

#Hero #Giving #Needs

No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them.
-- Assata Shakur

#Giving #Needs

I hate war, and I hate having to struggle. I honestly do because I wish I had been born into a world where it was unnecessary. This context of struggle and being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression. Otherwise I would be a sculptor, or a gardener, carpenter - You know, I would be free to be so much more… I guess part of me or a part of who I am, a part of what I do is being a warrior - a reluctant warrior, a reluctant struggler. But I do it, because I’m committed to life.
-- Assata Shakur

#Hate #War #Struggle

Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is....never let your enemies choose your enemies for you.
-- Assata Shakur

#Enemy #Fool

At this time I'd like to say a few words especially to my sisters: SISTERS. BLACK PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE FREE UNLESS BLACK WOMEN PARTICIPATE IN EVERY ASPECT OF OUR STRUGGLE, ON EVERY LEVEL OF OUR STRUGGLE.
-- Assata Shakur

#Struggle #People #Black

The usual way the people are taught to think in amerika is that each subject is in a little compartment and has no relation to any other subject.  For the most part, we receive fragments of unrelated knowledge, and our education follows no logical format or pattern.  It is exactly this kind of education that produces people who don’t have the ability to think for themselves and who are easily manipulated.
-- Assata Shakur

#Thinking #People #Usual

I am a Black revolutionary woman, and because of this i have been charged with and accused of every alleged crime in which a woman was believed to have participated. The alleged crimes in which only men were supposedly involved, i have been accused of planning. They have plastered pictures alleged to be me in post offices, airports, hotels, police cars, subways, banks, television, and newspapers. They have offered . rewards for my capture and they have issued orders to shoot on sight and shoot to kill.
-- Assata Shakur

#Men #Airports #Sight

Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.
-- Assata Shakur

#Moon #Black #Revolutionary

A revolutionary woman can't have no reactionary man. If he's not about liberation, if he's not about struggle, if he ain't about building a strong Black family, if he ain't about building a strong Black nation, then he ain't about nothing.
-- Assata Shakur

#Strong #Struggle #Men

It is the obligation of every person who claims to oppose oppression to resist the oppressor by every means at his or her disposal. Not to engage in physical resistance, armed resistance to oppression, is to serve the interests of the oppressor; no more, no less. There are no exceptions to the rule, no easy out...
-- Assata Shakur

#Mean #Resistance #Oppression

We’re taught at such an early age to be against the communists, yet most of us don’t have the faintest idea what communism is. Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.
-- Assata Shakur

#Ideas #Enemy #Age

i Believe In The Fire Of Love And The Sweat Of Truth
-- Assata Shakur

#Believe #Sweat #Fire

My life wasn't beautiful and creative before I became politically active. My life was totally changed when I began to struggle.
-- Assata Shakur

#Beautiful #Struggle #Creative

Where there is oppression, there will be resistance.
-- Assata Shakur

#Resistance #Oppression

Schools in amerika are interested in brainwashing people with amerikanism, giving them a little bit of education, and training them in skills needed to fill the positions the capitalist system requires. As long as we expect amerika's schools to educate us, we will remain ignorant.
-- Assata Shakur

#School #Skills #Long

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

#Dumb #World #Blind

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
-- Assata Shakur

#Beautiful #Taken #People

I was sentenced to life plus 30 years by an all-White jury. What I saw in prison was wall-to-wall Black flesh in chains. Women caged in cells. But we're the terrorists. It just doesn't make sense.
-- Assata Shakur

#Wall #Cells #Years

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

#Beautiful #Fun #Creating

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

#Spiritual #Struggle #Creativity

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

#Struggle #Love Is #Hands

Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory.
-- Assata Shakur

#Practice #Theory #Incomplete

It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us.
-- Assata Shakur

#Sake #Given #Without Hope

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
-- Assata Shakur

#Hair #Race #People

A revolutionary woman can't have no reactionary man.
-- Assata Shakur

#Men #Revolutionary

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

#Needs #Weapons #Construction

Before going back to college, i knew i didn't want to be an intellectual, spending my life in books and libraries without knowing what the hell is going on in the streets. Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory. The two have to go together.
-- Assata Shakur

#Book #College #Knowing

Any Black person in amerika [sic], if they are being honest with themselves, have got to come to the conclusion that they don't know what it feels like to be free. We aren't free politically, economically, or socially. We have very little power over what happens in our lives. In fact, a Black person isn't free to walk down the street. Walk down the wrong street, in the wrong neighborhood at night, and you know what happens.
-- Assata Shakur

#Night #Black #Littles

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.
-- Assata Shakur

#Fighting #Winning #Support

To become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.
-- Assata Shakur

#Slave

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

#Ghetto #Moon #Black

A woman’s place is in the struggle.
-- Assata Shakur

#Struggle

White people's fear of Black people with guns will never cease to amaze me. Probably it's because they think about what they would do were they in our place. Especially the police, who have done so much dirt to Black people - their guilty conscience tells them to be afraid. When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear.
-- Assata Shakur

#Fighting #Thinking #Gun

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
-- Assata Shakur

#Believe #Home #Tired

I own no TV stations, or Radio Stations or Newspapers. But I feel that people need to be educated as to what is going on, and to understand the connection between the news media and the instruments of repression in Amerika. All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will to tell the truth. But I sincerely ask, those of you in the Black media, those of you in the progressive media, those of you who believe in true freedom, to publish this statement and to let people know what is happening. We have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless.
-- Assata Shakur

#Believe #Media #Voice

My energy just couldn’t stop dancing. I was caught up in the music of struggle, and i wanted to dance.
-- Assata Shakur

#Struggle #Dancing #Energy

People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows.
-- Assata Shakur

#Thinking #People #Tolerance

As far as I was concerned, the Panthers were 'baaaaaad.' The Party was more than bad; it was bodacious. The sheer audacity of walking onto the California Senate floor with rifles, demanding that Black people have the right to bear arms and the right to self-defense, made me sit back and take a long look at them.
-- Assata Shakur

#Party #Self #California

Freedom! you askin me about freedom. I'll be honest with you. I know a whole more about what freedom isn't than about what it is, 'cause I've never been free. I can only share my vision with you of the future, about what freedom is.
-- Assata Shakur

#Vision #Causes #Honest

Peace is a rare gift. Peace of mind, peaceful sleeps, and peaceful spirits are all luxuries that few rebels can ever afford.
-- Assata Shakur

#Sleep #Luxury #Peaceful

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

#Hate #Issues #People

Like all other Black revolutionaries, Amerika is trying to lynch me.
-- Assata Shakur

#Black #Trying #Revolutionary

There is something about Sundiata [Acoli] that exudes calm. From every part of his being you can sense the presence of revolutionary spirit and fervor. And his love for Black people is so intense that you can almost touch it and hold it in your hand.
-- Assata Shakur

#Hands #People #Black

I realized that I was connected to Africa. I wasn't just a Colored girl. I was part of a whole world that wanted a better life. I'm part of a majority and not a minority. My life has been a life of growth. If you're not growing, you're not going to understand real love. If you're not reaching out to help others then you're shrinking. My life has been active. I'm not a spectator
-- Assata Shakur

#Girl #Real #Helping Others

I have advocated and I still advocate revolutionary change
-- Assata Shakur

#Revolutionary #Revolutionary Change #Stills

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

#Running #Long #People

And it is that one percent, the heads of large corporations, who control the policies of news media and determine what you and I hear on radio, read in the newspapers, see on television. It is more important for us to think about where the media gets its information.
-- Assata Shakur

#Thinking #Media #Important

That was one of the big problems in the [Black Panther] Party. Criticism and self-criticism were not encouraged, and the little that was given often wasn’t taken seriously. Constructive criticism and self-criticism are extremely important for any revolutionary organization. Without them, people tend to drown in their mistakes, not learn from them.
-- Assata Shakur

#Mistake #Party #Taken

People are tried and convicted in the newspapers and on television before they ever see a courtroom.
-- Assata Shakur

#People #Television #Newspapers

The more you understand what you're dealing with, the stronger you get. People see fear as a bad thing. Fear is healthy when you're dealing with Amerika. But when fear controls you, when you're afraid to struggle fear is a bad thing. I'm more afraid of what will happen if I don't struggle, than what will happen if I do
-- Assata Shakur

#Struggle #People #Healthy

The U. S. is becoming more hostile to Black people and other people of color. Racism is running rampant and xenophobia is on the rise
-- Assata Shakur

#Running #Xenophobia #Color

We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice.
-- Assata Shakur

#Simple #Practice #Simple Truths

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

#Government #Color #Racism

And if I know anything at all, it's that a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down.
-- Assata Shakur

#Wall #Broken

People think that in order for something to work, it has to be complicated, but a lot of times the opposite is true. We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice.
-- Assata Shakur

#Simple #Thinking #Order

I can't do nothin except try to find cloud nine.
-- Assata Shakur

#Clouds #Trying #Nine

I couldn't see how we could seriously struggle without having a strong sense of collectivity, without being responsible FOR each other and TO each other.
-- Assata Shakur

#Strong #Struggle #Responsible

Dreams and reality are opposites. Action synthesizes them.
-- Assata Shakur

#Dream #Reality #Opposites