Photo by Laylah Barrayn
The Assata Shakur Archives is a project dedicated to gathering, preserving, curating and sharing the digital and physical archives of activist, artist, mother, grandmother, poet, writer, revolutionary freedom fighter Assata Shakur. We are creating a living memorial to document the life of Assata Shakur with the aim of remembering and preserving her legacy—and our own.
Assata Olugbala Shakur was an activist, mother, grandmother, artist, writer, freedom fighter, member of the Black Panther Party, Republic of New Afrika and the Black Liberation Army who joined the ranks of the many freedom fighters targeted by the US Government’s illegal COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program). On November 2, 1979, with the help of committed comrades, she escaped from prison and was later granted political asylum in Cuba. In 1987 she wrote Assata, An Autobiography, which is still in print, has been translated into many languages, and is taught in high schools, colleges and universities throughout the world.
Assata’s words from a 1973 message, “To My People,” are now a rallying cry for millions around the world resisting state violence and fighting for the dignity of Black lives:
“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.”
ABOUT ASSATA SHAKUR
Celebration of Life
Assata was born JoAnne Deborah Byron on July 16, 1947 in New York City, to parents Carl Byron, an accountant, and Doris Johnson, a schoolteacher. After her parents divorced soon after her birth, Assata lived with her mother, her aunt Evelyn Williams, maternal grandmother Lulu Hill, and maternal grandfather Frank Hill, in the Bricktown section of Jamaica, Queens, New York.
At three years old, in 1950 Assata moved with her grandparents to Wilmington, North Carolina to live in the house where her grandfather grew up. Her grandparents opened a small business on land owned by the family called Freeman’s Beach, catering to Black families who were forbidden to go to segregated white beaches and resorts.
Throughout her childhood, she lived between her mother and her aunt Evelyn in New York, usually spending summers in the South with her grandparents.
Assata’s lived experiences with Jim Crow segregation in the South, and racism and sexism in the North strongly impacted her later life.
READ MORE about Assata’s life story HERE
On September 25th, 2025 Assata Shakur made her transition while living in political exile in Cuba.
Family, comrades and loved ones created the Assata Shakur Memorial Committee, which brought together thousands of people on May 30, 2026 in Harlem, NY at the Riverside Church and around the world online for a celebration of her life.
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Welcome to the Assata Shakur Archives Project—intentionally launched on her 79th birthday, July 16, 2026 to continue the celebration and honoring of the life and legacy of revolutionary freedom fighter Assata Olugbala Shakur. On September 25th, 2025 Assata made her transition while living in political exile in Cuba.
Family, comrades and loved ones created the Assata Shakur Memorial Committee, which brought together thousands of people on May 30, 2026 in Harlem, NY at the Riverside Church and around the world online for a celebration of her life. In the memorial tribute, our aim was to give our shero Assata Olugbala Shakur her flowers as a freedom fighter who inspired generations, and her flowers as a mother, friend, sister, comrade, artist, and so much more.
Our aim in this archives project is the same. This collective effort will continue to share our stories of our shero(s) and our own histories with as much richness and complexity as possible and with so much love.
This first phase of the project shares the beauty and love from her celebration of life memorial in New York as captured in photography, written text, sound, and video. Here you will find the livestream recording of the celebration, the soundscape featuring Assata’s voice curated by DJ/Sound Artist Ayana Contreras, photographs by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn and Solwazi Afi Olusola, the tribute poster created by writer, performer and visual artist Krista Franklin, audio tributes by activist, journalist and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and Indigenous activist and former political prisoner Leonard Peltier, in addition to the memorial program booklet which was designed to be complimentary to the program. The program booklet includes collages, photographs, and visual art including Assata’s drawings while in prison and in exile, never seen before by the public.
The booklet begins with a letter from her daughter, Kakuya, and includes words from her comrades--especially the defiant comrades who successfully liberated Assata from prison. The booklet ends with respect paid from the next generation of organizers and activists, in addition to love from the public, elected officials, cultural workers and artists.
Our hope in this phase of the Assata Shakur Archives Project is to preserve and retain our collective memory of Assata’s memorial, including all of the various movements we brought together, the beauty and love we curated, and the care we centered throughout. May these archives help us all to carry it on.
It is our duty to remember and carry on the tradition.
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As we launch this project, we are asking you to consider donating whatever you can to help with the archival work. We will be working with archivists to help with conservation, preservation, storage and digitization of physical material, in addition to collecting and curating crowd-sourced digital materials. We also aim to create finding aids and curriculum guides.
To help this important work come to life, please consider giving generously.
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Two months after the historic Carry it On Assata Shakur Memorial at New York City’s Riverside Church, several members of the memorial host committee have reconvened to build a public and permanent space of remembrance, honoring, storytelling, and truth affirmation. Our ancestors and their stories belong to us. More than anything, Assata belonged to her people. She taught us to refuse and reject erasure, to continue the work, and to always tell our own history. This project is one of the many ways we will “carry it on.”
Carry it On: Celebration of Life, Legacy, and the Work
Tribute: mumia abu-jamal
Tribute: leonard peltier
Assata Shakur Memorial Soundscape
REPAST PLAYLIST/MIX: A GENTLE RETURN (FOR KAKUYA) by kedar coleman
STAY IN TOUCH WITH US
The Assata Shakur Archives is just getting started. Share your email and we will keep you posted about our progress!
Carry it on with us by tagging your social media posts of photos and videos from Assata’s memorial at the Riverside Church on May 30th using the hashtag: #Assata Lives