Assata: An Autobiography (35 page)

The problem of racism takes on so many forms and displays so many subtleties. It is a complicated problem that will require much analysis and much struggle to resolve. Although, in some ways, Cubans and I approached the problem from different angles, i felt we shared the same goal: the abolition of racism all over the world. I respected the Cuban government, not only for adopting nonracist principles, but for struggling to put those principles into practice.

I held my breath as i waited for my aunt to pick up the phone. It had been five years since i had last spoken to her. Five years since i had been able to contact my family. Hopefully, she hadn't changed her number. A click. And then, at last, i heard her voice. I was so happy.

"Anty," i almost shouted. "It's me. Assata."

“Who?"

“Assata."

“Who?"

"It's me. Assata. I'm in Cuba. I'm in Cuba. Oh, i love you. It’s so good to hear your voice. How are you?”

The voice on the other end was my aunt's, but it was so cold i could hardly believe it. "Oh. Really. Assata. Hm. Right. Well, I'm fine."

"What's the matter, Anty? It's me. Assata. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine.”

"Anty. Oh, i missed you so much. It's all right. Everything’s O.K. I'm fine. I'm fine. How's everybody? How's everybody there?"

Again the icy voice. "Everything is just fine. What do you want?”

"What do i want? What do you mean, what do i want? I want to talk to you. I love you. You sound so cold.”

“Well…it…it…I…” There was a pause. And then, "Say something so I'll know it's really you. Something only you and I know."

Finally understanding, i said the first thing that popped into my head. "Anty, panty, jack o'stanty." It was a stupid childhood rhyme and nobody else could possibly know about it. I used to taunt her with it when I was a kid.

"It is you. Oh, my God, it really is you," she screamed. "Wait. Give me a second to catch my breath. How are you?"

"Fine," i said. "How's Mommy and Kakuya?"

"Your mother's fine. Oh, she's gonna be so happy when I tell her I've talked to you. Kakuya's fine, too. Your daughter is so big you won't recognize her. She's almost as tall as you are.”

I told her i wanted to call my mother and Kakuya as soon as i finished talking to her.

"No. You call her tomorrow. Let me call her first, so she really knows its you. Where did you say you are?”

"Cuba. I'm calling from Cuba. I'm a political refugee here."

"Cuba?" my aunt repeated. "Cuba? Are you O.K. there? I mean, are you safe?”

"I think so," i told her. "I feel fine. It seems that way."

Talking to Kakuya and my mother the next day was like a dream. "Hi," this little voice said into the phone. It was the most beautiful voice i'd ever heard. I was nervous and happy. Sweating buckets.

"How are you?" i asked my daughter.

“Fine."

I felt like a pot boiling over. All the feelings i'd kept inside for so long came gushing out. I had a million things i wanted to ask her. A million things i wanted to say.

My mother and i made plans. She and my aunt and Kakuya would come down as soon as possible. It seemed too good to be true. And it was.

Month after month passed by. In order for Kakuya to get her passport, she needed a birth certificate. My mother told me that for ten years Elmhurst Hospital had refused to issue Kakuya a birth certificate. Finally, after months of hassling, Evelyn had to go to kourt to get a document proving that my daughter had been born.

Over the months that followed, i began to understand the kind of hell that the police and the FBI had put my family through. After i had escaped, the police had so persistently and brutally badgered my mother that she had had a heart attack. What they had done to Evelyn was beyond belief. I understood why Evelyn had reacted to my call the way she did. At one time, Evelyn's office telephone had ten intercepts on it. She and my mother had received phony notes in my handwriting. They had received telephone calls with my voice telling them to "come to the spot and bring some money." They had found electric eyes and all kinds of other devices in and around their houses. They had experienced strange break-ins where nothing of value was taken. But they had survived. And grown stronger in the process.

As the plane swooped down over Havana, it seemed that my heart was beating on my ribs to get out. My stomach hurt. My mouth was dry like cotton. It seemed like a million people poured off the plane before the tall little girl with the great big eyes started down the ramp. I could see my mother, looking frail, yet so determined. With my aunt behind her, looking triumphant.

How much we had all gone through. Our fight had started on a slave ship years before we were born. Venceremos, my favorite word in Spanish, crossed my mind. Ten million people had stood up to the monster. Ten million people only ninety miles away. We were here together in their land, my small little family, holding each other after so long. There was no doubt about it, our people would one day be free. The cowboys and bandits didn't own the world.

¹
On December 11, 1978, attorney Lennox Hinds, on behalf of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the National Alliance Against Racism, and the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ, sent a petition to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights alleging a "consistent pattern of gross…violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms of certain classes of prisoners in the United States because of their race, economic status, and political beliefs." In response to the petition, seven international jurists visited a number of prisoners on August 3-20, 1979, and reported their findings. They listed four categories of prisoners, the first of which were political prisoners, defined as "a class of victims of FBI misconduct through the COINTELPRO strategy and other forms of illegal governmental conduct who as political activists have been selectively targeted for provocation, false arrests, entrapment, fabrication of evidence, and spurious criminal prosecutions. This class is exemplified by at least: The Wilmington Ten, the Charlotte Three, Assata Shakur, Sundiata Acoli, Imari Obadele and other Republic of New Africa defendants, David Rice, Ed Poindexter, Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt, Richard Marshall, Russell Means, Ted Means and other American Indian Movement defendants."

They considered my case in the section of their report dealing with solitary con finement: "One of the worst cases is that of ASSATA SHAKUR, who spent over twenty months in solitary confinement in two separate men's prisons subject to conditions totally unbefitting any prisoner. Many more months were spent in solitary confinement in mixed or all-women's prisons. Presently, after protracted litigation, she is confined at Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in maximum security. She has never on any occasion been punished for any infraction of prison rules which might in any way justify such cruel or unusual treatment."