You Don't Get to Leave the Movement: Lessons From Assata Shakur's Memorial
S. E. Anderson
You Don't Get to Leave the Movement: Lessons From Assata Shakur's Memorial
“Who are we if we are not the blooms of our martyrs?”
I am sure that Kakuya can sing because every word that she offers dances through the air that hangs heavy with Ancestors.
Assata Shakur’s daughter Kakuya Shakur speaks during celebration.
On Saturday, May 30, a capacity crowd paid tribute to Mama Assata Shakur inside New York’s Riverside Church. The rafters still echo with the voices of Nelson Mandela and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I sat alongside my dear sister, Cat Brooks, and amidst giants that included Dr. Angela Davis and my Baba Hank Jones.
We were grounded in libation, our souls fed by Sweet Honey in the Rock. The pews teemed with revolutionaries from around the world, former political prisoners, Panther cubs, artists, and movement workers, who had all been shaped by Mama Assata’s example, teachings, writings, art, and spirit.
Assata Shakur was a leader in the Black Panther Party and co-founded the Black Liberation Army. Even as the state imprisoned Assata for her revolutionary ideas and work, she remained ever free in her soul, conceiving and birthing her beloved daughter, Kakuya, while jailed.
In 1979, she was liberated from a prison that intended to cage her for life (plus 33 years) by courageous comrades Sekou Odinga and Mutulu Shakur. The people held her with care as she lived underground until she was granted asylum in Cuba, where she wrote her 1987 autobiography, made art, walked in the sun, and lived in freedom until her passing last year at the age of 78.
And, this writing is not about Assata…at least not about Assata alone. It is about what it means to give one’s life to movement.
My oldest child has been known to admonish elders, “You don’t get to leave the movement.” Thandiwe rejects the notion that liberation struggle is their generation’s current inheritance. There is no passing of batons, only the joining of a beautiful struggle where we all share a sacred duty to get free.
Children become comrades, not heirs. Elders may rotate off front lines as their energy and body demands, but they do not get to relinquish responsibility and sink back into lives of quiet. Even when their bodies pass, they become warrior-ancestors, protectors, and guides.
It is appropriate that if they were to miss Mama Assata’s memorial, it was to be the youngest on the Institute for the Black World delegation to Cuba. There, Thandiwe would drink in Assata’s spirit, ordain Dr. Julianne Malveaux as the “world’s best curser and storyteller,” gather up revolutionary gossip dating back at least half-a-century, and revel in the radical imagings of Baba Akili and dozens of others who have been in movement “all of your life.”
Inside Riverside Church, I found myself sandwiched between elders clad in white and young ones draped in kefiyahs. We spent more time laughing than crying, more handholding than mourning; we sang, chanted, stomped, prayed, and smiled widely. We met each other’s eyes across the room, rubbed each other’s backs, asked “how are you?” and waited for real responses. We reconnected with movement siblings and embraced new comrades.
At the repast I glanced behind me and locked eyes with my sister Roslyn, who I didn’t know would be there. We doubled over and belly-laughed at the sight of each other. We served plates to elders, complimented young ones, and shared meals. Nothing was performative as we found restoration in each other’s arms.
I tried desperately to take it in, to experience and remember, to hold on to the smiles, the hearts, the warmth. I took photos with folks who I know well and those just entering my orbit…to document, because moments are fleeting and tomorrow is not promised.
Members of community at Riverside Church on May 30 for “Carry It On: A Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Assata Shakur.”
As the evening closed, I shared “I love yous” with movement family and took a long walk with a new comrade. The next day, I took the hours before my flight to plot, plan, and build with some of my dearest brothers, before heading out.
There is a fight to be had in Collin County, Texas, where we are facing down a lynch mob and a white-supremacist system that wants to steal the life and the freedom of Karmelo Anthony, who at 17-years-old was forced to defend himself from white bullies at a track meet. He is now facing the possibility of life in prison. As anxiety builds, the presence and calm advisement of movement comrades become a grounding force.
To be the blooms of our martyrs is to continue the work…until we are free. Mama Assata lives through Kakuya, and, too, through our righteous work. This movement is one to which we are spirit and duty bound…for a lifetime and beyond.
May we find vision, strength, resilience, and love in each other as we power forward, fight, and win. ///
s. e. anderson
author of The Black Holocaust for Beginners
"If WORK was good for you, the rich would leave none for the poor." (Haiti)
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