Revolutionary figure Assata Shakur has passed away at the age of 78 in Havana, Cuba. Shakur, who was the first woman to be on the FBI most wanted list of terrorists, had a $2 million reward offered by the FBI for her capture. Shakur was a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. In 1973, she and two of her comrades were stopped by state troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike and the interaction turned into a shootout, with one of Shakur’s collaborators being killed as well as one of the state troopers. In 1977, Shakur was found guilty of murder by an all-white jury, she wrote in an open letter, and received the maximum sentence despite evidence that a) indicated she was shot while surrendering and had her hands up, therefore could not have fired a gun, and b) the surviving officer lied during cross-examination. Fearing she would be harmed or murdered in prison, the members of the Black Liberation Army helped Shakur escape from prison in 1978 and in 1984 she fled to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum.
There are many lessons on workplace resistance that Shakur can teach us, especially in the current climate. Her legacy is a powerful reminder of the importance of storytelling. After Shakur fled to Cuba, she wrote her autobiography, Assata. She was able to tell her own story in her own words, pushing back against inaccurate and racist narratives that were being propagated in the media. How can we tell our own stories, in our own words and on our own terms? What does this look like in practice?
Documentation is vital. Shakur was able to document, through her writing, what she endured. Employees should recognize the value of sharing their experiences and how these experiences can become a powerful catalyst for change. If you have experienced discrimination for example, sharing your personal narrative can drive shifts in the workplace. Employers should provide employees with opportunities to share, in narrative form, whether on surveys, in focus groups or during exit interviews.
Shakur helped us to understand how the personal is political—our individual experiences highlight larger systemic issues that warrant examination. How is what we are experiencing in the workplace part of a larger system of harm and oppression? Shakur’s legacy invites us to investigate how systems of oppression work in tandem to oppress everyone. Everything is connected. Resistance can look like pushing for the creation of workplace policies that support the most marginalized. We must constantly be considering how individual experiences point to systemic issues and develop interventions that address these problems at the root.
In her autobiography, Shakur highlighted the importance of community, writing, “Without support from the people, no movement for liberation can exist.” This is a powerful lesson in the value of community in our resistance efforts. It’s hard for one employee to drive change but a group of employees have more power and can be instrumental in driving shifts.
Shakur also reminded readers of the significance of coalition-building, writing in her autobiography, “The basis of any struggle is people coming together to fight against a common enemy.” In our workplaces, we must realize that a threat to one employee anywhere, is a threat to every employee. Policies that are discriminatory to elderly employees, for example, or disabled employees, may also harm Asian employees. We must recognize how interventions designed to support our most marginalized employees, end up being beneficial to the workplace and employees, as a whole. Our resistance can involve building coalitions with employees who are all working towards the same objectives and goals.
In the last few years, there has been a focus away from workplace practices and policies that center diversity, equity, and inclusion. Despite a brief focus on systemic racism after the murder of George Floyd, in the five years since his death, the pendulum has swung the other way and the anti-DEI movement is growing, with some suggesting that a focus on issues of systemic racism and DEI is anti-white, exclusionary and biased. Shakur reminded us that despite this belief, all our struggles are interconnected. In the workplace, resisting an oppressive status quo means centering the needs of employees, especially those on the margins, particularly as there is a push away from this. We must hold Shakur’s words close, especially during times like these: “Any community seriously concerned with its own freedom has to be concerned about other people’s freedom as well.”