Harold Michael Harvey Brings Assata in Freedom

“I am a 20th-century escaped slave.” —Assata Shakur

Assata in Freedom

     Syncopated Survival and the Score of Resistance

Assata Shakur was sentenced in 1979 to a life confined behind prison walls for a murder, she affirmed she did not commit. But she did not vanish into the abyss. She escaped and recomposed.

In 1984, Assata surfaced in Cuba, where she was granted asylum by a nation that recognized her not as a fugitive, but as a freedom fighter. Her escape from a United States prison was not just physical—it was metaphysical.  A refusal to be silenced. A refusal to be written out of history.

She called herself an “escaped 20th-century slave.” A reality that far too many Africans living in America can’t grasp because they refuse to realize enslavement remains with us. Neither can they wrap their collective heads around the fact that escape is still a viable option.

Assata understood Imperial aggression abroad and its connection to political and economic aggression at home. In doing so, she reframed exile as a form of authorship. Her life in Cuba became a syncopated survival—a rhythm of resistance that pulsed across borders, generations, and movements.

In Havana, Assata penned Assata: An Autobiography, a text that braided memory, poetry, and political critique. It became scripture for the dispossessed—a guidebook for those navigating the intersections of race, gender, and state violence.

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win… We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

While living not in exile, but living in freedom in Cuba, Assata also wrote, Assata: In Her Own Words, a collection of essays, speeches, and other musings where she preached the gospel according to Assata.

Her words echoed through hip-hop, protest chants, and classroom walls. She became a symbol not of escape, but of endurance.

Assata’s so-called exile was not retreat—it was syncopation—a deliberate break in the beat of American tyranny. Like Coltrane’s solos, her silence was never empty. It was charged and composed.

“My music is the spiritual expression of what I am—my faith, my knowledge, my being.” —John Coltrane.

“Artists are the gatekeepers of truth.” —Paul Robeson.

“Revolutions overturn systems.” —Malcolm X.

Assata lived her revolution, not in spectacle, but in sustained refusal. She refused to let the state define her. Refused to let history erase her. Refused to let exile mean invisibility.

Today, as the U.S. government teeters on the edge of another shutdown, and as state-sponsored repression slaps the entire continent in the face, Assata’s legacy feels urgent—the system stalls, the people suffer, and the rhythm of governance stutters again. This time, White, Red, Yellow, and Brown people are caught in the crosshairs of a tyrannical empire in the making, alongside their Black brothers and sisters.

But Assata reminds us: survival is not submission. Silence can be a strategy. Exile can also be a form of authorship.

Her life offers a blueprint—not for escape, but for endurance. For composing truth in the margins. For refusing to be forgotten.

Let Assata’s legacy be more than a memory. Let it be a method.

Let us write in her rhythm. Speak in her syncopation. Refuse in her resolve. And strike a blow for freedom, the kind of freedom long sought by our ancestors, and not the freedom of a non-repentant reconstruction designed to appease the confederation.

“If the system won’t change its tune, maybe it’s time we write a new one.”-

Harold Michael Harvey