Assata Shakur, an icon of Black liberation who was exiled to Cuba, dies aged 78

Assata Shakur holding the manuscript of her autobiography with Old Havana, Cuba, in the background on 7 October 1987. Photograph: Newsday LLC/Newsday RM/Getty Images

On 25 September, Assata Shakur, a former member of the Black Liberation Army, died aged 78 in Havana, Cuba, according to Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Cuban officials cited the reason for her death as old age and health conditions. Shakur, a longstanding symbol of resistance and Black liberation, spent several decades exiled in Cuba after she was convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1977 and escaped from prison.

“At approximately 1:15pm on September 25th, my mother, Assata Shakur, took her last earthly breath,” her daughter Kakuya Shakur wrote on Facebook. “Words cannot describe the depth of loss that I’m feeling at this time.”