Disrupting the Past, Reframing the Present: Websites, Alternative Histories and Petit Récits as Black Nationalist Politics

In May of 1973, three members of the Black Liberation Army (BLA) — Assata Shakur, Zayd Shakur and Sundiata Acoli — were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike by New Jersey State Troopers Werner Foerster and James Harper. At the end of the ensuing conflict, State Trooper Foerster and BLA member Zayd Shakur lay dead, Harper and Assata Shakur wounded. As a result, Assata Shakur was tried and found guilty of two counts of murder and six assault charges and was sentenced to 26 to 32 years in prison. In November 1979, with the aid of several BLA members, Shakur escaped prison. After several years of evading authorities in the US, in 1984 she made her way to Cuba, where she was granted asylum and remains to this day. In 2005, the FBI placed Shakur on their Most Wanted list and then in 2013 on their Most Wanted Terrorist list. Together, the FBI and the New Jersey State Police are offering a total of two million dollars for her return. This story, of one woman’s life over four decades, stands as an example of righteous resistance to some and of brutal criminality to others. Whether Assata Shakur and her companions were violent criminals or freedom fighters in the tradition of Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King Jr depends on what version of the US past is used to contextualize their actions.