Sunday, September 28, 2025
■ Today's Top News
"Donald Trump and his billionaire donors might be able to determine Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo's actions but they will not dictate the results of this election," Mamdani said in response to the news.
By Olivia Rosane
Following pressure to drop out of the mayoral race from the Trump administration and business leaders, current New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced on Sunday that he would end his bid to seek reelection.
Adams was running as an Independent against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, also running as an Independent; Republican Curtis Sliwa; and frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist whose victory in the Democratic primary has spooked moneyed interests and right-wing politicians including US President Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump and his billionaire donors might be able to determine Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo’s actions but they will not dictate the results of this election,” Mandani said in response to the news. “New York deserves better than trading in one disgraced, corrupt politician for another. On November 4, we are going to turn the page on the politics of big money and small ideas and deliver a government every New Yorker can be proud of.”
Adams’ term as mayor was marked by scandal. He was charged with bribery, wire fraud, and soliciting illegal campaign donations from foreign parties by the federal government in 2024 only to have the charges dropped by Trump’s Department of Justice in 2025 so that Adams could focus on facilitating Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown. The incident raised concerns among New Yorkers that Adams was beholden to the president.
“Despite all we’ve achieved, I cannot continue my reelection campaign,” Adams said in a video posted on social media Sunday. “The constant media speculation about my future and the Campaign Finance Board’s decision to withhold millions of dollars have undermined my ability to raise the funds needed for a serious campaign.”
Adams had faced pressure to bow out of the race so that Cuomo would be the only centrist candidate, in a bid to hinder Mamdani’s pathway to victory. His announcement comes weeks after the news broke that Trump administration officials were weighing offering jobs to Adams and Sliwa in order to boost Cuomo.
In his video, Adams did not endorse any other candidate by name, but appeared to warn against Mamdani.
“Major change is welcome and necessary, but beware of those who claim the answer [is] to destroy the very system we built over generations,” he said. “That is not change, that is chaos. Instead, I urge leaders to choose leaders not by what they promise, but by what they have delivered.”
Cuomo praised Adams for his decision, saying, “I believe he is sincere in putting the well-being of New York City ahead of personal ambition. We face destructive extremist forces that would devastate our city through incompetence or ignorance, but it is not too late to stop them.”
However, it is unclear how much Adams’ departure will actually help Cuomo, as he was polling at less than 10% and, as the Associated Press noted, there is no guarantee that enough of his supporters would switch their allegiance to Cuomo to make a difference.
Mandani has run a popular campaign focused on lowering the cost of living in New York City, including proposals such as free busses, city-run grocery stores, and universal childcare.
"By targeting beliefs and protest activity, the directive positions dissent itself as a potential crime," one news organization said.
By Olivia Rosane
In between his highly publicized designation of Antifa as a domestic terror organization and his indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, US President Donald Trump signed a little-reported national security memorandum that gives law enforcement new tools to target his critics.
Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) on Thursday. The directive, titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” focuses exclusively on “anti-fascist” or left-wing activities, and mandates a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
“I don’t want to sound hyperbolic but the plain truth is that NSPM-7 is a declaration of war on anyone who does not support the Trump administration and its agenda,” journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote in a piece raising alarm about the directive on Saturday.
Klippenstein argued that the memorandum was worrying on several fronts. For one, its focus on preventing crimes before they are committed opens the door to rights violations.
“In other words, they’re targeting pre-crime, to reference Minority Report,” Klippenstein wrote.
For another, the memorandum casts a very wide net, targeting groups, individuals, funders, and “entities” and listing several protected beliefs as “indicia” of extremism.
These include:
- “Anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity;
- Support for the overthrow of the United States Government;
- Extremism on migration, race, and gender; and
- Hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
What’s more, the memorandum entrusts enforcement to the FBI’s over 4,000-strong Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF), which removes the legal challenges to directing the National Guard or other military forces to quash domestic dissent.
“For the Trump White House, the beauty of using an already existing network is that it bypasses Congressional oversight and scrutiny and even obscures federal activity to governors and legislatures at the state level,” Klippenstein wrote.
The types of activities that will be targeted are also quite broad, with the document defining “organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder” as “domestic terrorist acts.”
The memorandum also targets any individual or group who might fund activity the administration deems terrorism and directs the Internal Revenue Service to “take action to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism,” which could be a means of threatening the status of nonprofits.
Finally, as Drop Site News pointed out, the memo authorizes the attorney general to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations for the first time in US history.
“By targeting beliefs and protest activity, the directive positions dissent itself as a potential crime,” Drop Site wrote.
The Trump administration’s focus on violence associated with left-wing beliefs and groups is not supported by the facts. National Institute of Justice data found that right-wing violence had led to 520 deaths since 1990 compared with 78 deaths due to left-wing violence. However, the administration removed that study from the Department of Justice website shortly after Charlie Kirk was killed, The Guardian reported earlier this month.
The administration’s efforts, while accelerated, build on processes that began during the US response to the September 11 attacks, as Klippenstein explained:
A “pre-crime” endeavor, preventing attacks before they happen, is core to the post-9/11 concept of counterterrorism itself. No longer satisfied to investigate acts of terrorism after the fact to bring terrorists to justice, the Bush administration adopted preemption. Overseas, that led to aerial assassination by drones and “special operations” kill missions. Domestically, it led to a counter-terrorism campaign whose hallmark was excessive and illegal government surveillance and the use of undercover agents and “confidential human sources” to trap (and entrap) would-be terrorists.
However, the Trump administration is expanding the War-on-Terror mandate with fewer guardrails.
“Now, with Donald Trump’s directive retooling the counter-terror apparatus to go after Americans at home, this means monitoring political activity, or speech, as an investigative method to discover ‘radicalism,‘” Klippenstein said, noting that the NSPM-7 breaks with post-Watergate national security documents by failing to mention the First Amendment rights to protest and organize.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is already eager to make use of the document.
“We are witnessing domestic terrorist sedition against the federal government,” he wrote on social media on Friday. “The JTTF has been dispatched by the Attorney General, pursuant to NSPM-7. All necessary resources will be utilized.”
In an interview with Greg Sargent for the New Republic, Trump ally Steve Bannon confirmed that Miller and others in the administration were preparing to go after left-liberal groups and media whose criticism of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could be interpreted as “goading” on violence against the agency.
Referring to Miller’s comments that calling ICE authoritarian incited violence and terrorism, Bannon responded, “Stephen Miller is correct—more importantly he’s in charge.”
The threats of investigations put liberal and left-leaning organizations in a tough place. On the one hand, they want to prepare as best they can. On the other, they do not want to obey in advance.
“Officials at these groups tell me they must strike a balance between being clear-eyed about how bad this could get while not letting it discourage political activity,” Sargent wrote. “That latter form of surrender is exactly what Trump and Miller want. And under no circumstances should anybody willingly hand it over to them.”
"This unilateral action represents an abuse of executive authority, seeks to incite violence, and undermines the constitutional balance of power between the federal government and states," Oregon lawmakers wrote.
By Olivia Rosane
In his latest attempt to turn the US military on an American city, President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he was sending troops to Portland, Oregon and had authorized them to use “Full Force, if necessary.”
“At the request of Secretary of Homeland Security, DOG KILLER Kristi Noem, I am directing Secretary of War, WHISKEY Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump’s announcement follows his deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, as well as his threats to send the military to Chicago and Memphis. These deployments have been widely condemned and legally challenged as a massive overreach of executive authority.
Portland and Oregon leaders were no less vehement in their opposition to Trump’s order for their city.
“Trump is plunging further into authoritarianism every single day.”
“President Trump has directed ‘all necessary Troops’ to Portland, Oregon. The number of necessary troops is zero, in Portland and any other American city,” Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement on Saturday. “Our nation has a long memory for acts of oppression, and the president will not find lawlessness or violence here unless he plans to perpetrate it.”
Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said that she had not been informed ahead of time of any reason for the deployment of federal troops.
“In my conversations directly with President Trump and Secretary Noem, I have been abundantly clear that Portland and the State of Oregon believe in the rule of law and can manage our own local public safety needs,” she wrote on social media. “There is no insurrection. There is no threat to national security.”
Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) said in a statement: “The President of the United States is directing his self-proclaimed ‘Secretary of War’ to unleash militarized federal forces in an American city he disagrees with. This is an egregious abuse of power and a betrayal of our most basic American values.”
“Authoritarians rely on fear to divide us,” she continued. “Portland will not give them that. We will not be intimidated. We have prepared for this moment since Trump first took office, and we will meet it with every tool available to us: litigation, legislation, and the power of peaceful public pressure.”
Dexter also posted a photograph of a tranquil park on social media, mocking the idea that Portland was a war zone.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) adopted a similar strategy, posting videos of downtown Portland and of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility that has been the site of protests Trump has characterized as out-of-control.
Dexter and Wyden were among the seven members of Oregon’s congressional delegation who sent a letter to Trump, Noem, and Hegseth on Saturday urging them to reconsider.
“Portland is a vibrant and peaceful city, and does not require any deployment of federal troops or additional federal agents to keep our community safe,” the lawmakers wrote. “This unilateral action represents an abuse of executive authority, seeks to incite violence, and undermines the constitutional balance of power between the federal government and states. We urge you to rescind this decision, and withdraw any military personnel and federal agents you have recently sought to deploy.”
As of Saturday, Oregon National Guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Stephen Bomar told The Associated Press in an email that “no official requests have been received at this time.” However, Oregon officials noted an uptick in the presence of federal agents and armored vehicles in Portland on Friday.
In a press conference Friday evening, Mayor Wilson suggested that the deployment was a “distraction” from the looming GOP-driven government shutdown.
“Imagine if the federal government sent instead 100 teachers or 100 engineers or 100 addiction specialists,” Wilson said.
Earlier in the week, Trump also smeered Portland protesters as “professional agitators and anarchists,” according to the Portland Tribune.
“We’re going to get out there and we’re going to do a pretty big number on those people in Portland,” Trump said.
The federal deployment threatens to reopen wounds from 2020, when Portland was the site of massive protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd and the first Trump administration sent federal and border agents to the city.
As the Oregon lawmakers wrote:
Portland residents experienced the consequences of an unnecessary and outrageous federal deployment five years ago. In summer of 2020, the White House unleashed federal agents on Portland like an occupying army, complete with military-grade equipment and violent tactics that were utterly unacceptable on American soil. A federal agent shot a peaceful protester in the head with a crowd-control munition, sending the man to the hospital with a fractured skull. Federal agents were captured on video jumping out of unmarked vans and grabbing people off the streets without explanation. A county commissioner was tear gassed along with other non-violent protestors. A Navy veteran was filmed being beaten by federal agents after he questioned them about their actions. These examples, and many more that occurred in Portland, demonstrate that the federal agents who were parachuted into Portland incited violence and trampled over the constitutional rights of Americans. There is no question that another deployment by your administration will result in similar abuses.
However, the risks of abuses are perhaps even higher as the second Trump administration has designated “antifa,” which is not an actual, coherent group, as a domestic terrorist organization, a dubious legal move that experts warn is an attempt to restrict the First Amendment rights of leftists and others critical of the administration.
“If ever there was a time not to normalize Trump’s authoritarian fever dreams, this is it,” said journalist Mehdi Hasan on social media. “This should be impeachable. ‘War ravaged’ Portland? He’s insane—& insanely power hungry. The script is set—call an imaginary group a terror group and then send in the troops.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) urged his constituents not to give Trump the confrontation he is clearly seeking.
“Trump is sending troops to Portland with the goal of ‘doing a number’ on the city. We know what this means. He wants to stoke fear and chaos and trigger violent interactions and riots to justify expanded authoritarian control,” he said in a video posted on social media. “Let’s not take the bait! Portland is peaceful and strong and we will take care of each other.”
Other advocates and lawmakers also took issue with Trump’s characterization of Portland.
Human Rights lawyer Qasim Rashid pointed out that Portland had actually experienced the most dramatic drop in homicides among all US cities during the first half of 2025.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the description of Portland as “war ravaged” was “delusional and dangerous.”
“Sending troops into American cities doesn’t make our communities safer—it just stokes fear and stirs up chaos,” she wrote on social media. “Trump is plunging further into authoritarianism every single day.”
Civil rights lawyer and author Alec Karakatsanis said that the mainstream media needed to reflect on how its reporting had enabled Trump’s false narrative about Portland.
“This kind of outrageous misinformation would not be possible without the culture of fear spread for years by the mainstream media,” Karakatsanis wrote on social media. “He is playing on the prodigious ignorance and irrational fear cultivated by the way the news media distorts our sense of safety.”
“Portland, needless to say, is nothing remotely like what Trump describes,” he continued. “But the mass media has created an entirely delusional public perception of what threats we face and from whom.”
NBC reported Friday that the US military is considering options including drone strikes against drug cartel members within the South American country, prompting fears of escalation.
By Olivia Rosane
The Trump administration may strike alleged drug targets inside Venezuela’s borders within weeks, sources familiar with the situation told NBC News on Friday.
Two US officials and two other sources with knowledge of the conversations that had taken place said that the US military was considering plans that could include drone strikes against members and leaders of drug trafficking groups as well as drug laboratories. If approved, the strikes would be a further escalation following three Trump administration attacks on alleged drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean that have killed at least 17 people, even though the administration has provided no evidence that those killed were actually smuggling drugs.
“More mass murder on the cards?” the news outlet Venezeulanaysis wrote in response. “NBC reports that the Trump administration is weighing strikes against ‘drug targets’ (emphasis on the air quotes) inside Venezuelan territory. Lots of speculation and anonymous sources, but it shows that no war crimes are off limits.”
US President Donald Trump has already come under heavy criticism for authorizing boat strikes that many decry as illegal. Democratic lawmakers have moved to bar the president from authorizing further attacks, and Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for the United Nations to take criminal proceedings against the US president in a speech on Tuesday.
“This is the most egregious instance of disinformation against our nation, intended to justify an escalation to armed conflict that would inflict catastrophic damage across the entire continent.”
Now, observers are responding with alarm to the news that the administration might go even further.
El Pais correspondent Juan Diego Quesada wrote on social media that strikes within Venezuelan territory “would escalate the conflict to a level whose consequences I dare not measure.”
“How would this not be considered an act of war?” asked poster Cindy Gossett. “Trump can’t just claim Venezuelan citizens are drug lords therefore he’s going to fly a drone over and destroy them. If Venezuela did the same in our country it wouldn’t be accepted.”
Speaking at the UN General Assembly on Friday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil Pinto said that the US had an “illegal and completely immoral military threat hanging over our heads.”
Pinto also cast doubt on the notion that the Trump administration’s true aim was to combat the drug trade.
He accused the US of trying to permit “external powers to rob Venezuela’s immeasurable oil and gas wealth” and said that the administration was using “vulgar and perverse lies” to “justify an atrocious, extravagant, and immoral multibillion-dollar military threat.”
Trump has yet to authorize any particular plan, according to NBC. The Pentagon declined to comment on their report, and the White House referred the outlet to a previous statement from Trump: “We’ll see what happens. Venezuela is sending us their gang members, their drug dealers, and drugs. It’s not acceptable.”
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has denied that his administration has not done enough to prevent drug trafficking through the South American country, as Trump has accused.
Maduro sent a letter to the White House on September 6 calling for peace and dialogue and defending his record, noting that, according to a UN report, only 5% of the drugs that leave Colombia do so via Venezuela.
He wrote of the trafficking claims, “This is the most egregious instance of disinformation against our nation, intended to justify an escalation to armed conflict that would inflict catastrophic damage across the entire continent.”
Toward the end of the letter, he appealed to Trump to work with him to reduce tensions.
“President, I hope that together we can defeat the falsehoods that have sullied our relationship, which must be historic and peaceful,” Maduro wrote.
"What the US government is doing to me breaks all the norms of immunity on which the functioning of the United Nations and its General Assembly is based," Petro said.
By Olivia Rosane
The Trump administration on Friday revoked left-wing Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s visa after he spoke to crowds of protesters in New York City, urging US soldiers not to point their guns at innocent civilians and to disobey the orders of US President Donald Trump.
The US State Department wrote on social media on Friday that Petro had “urged US soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence” and that it would revoked Petro’s visa “due to his reckless and incendiary actions.”
“Mr. Trump has violated the founding principles of the UN,” Petro wrote on social media Saturday in response to the news.
Petro, who was in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), criticized Trump in a speech before the UN on Tuesday, in which he called him “complicit in genocide” for backing Israel’s war on Gaza and urged the UN to open criminal proceedings against Trump’s air strikes on boats in the Caribbean alleged to be transporting drugs.
“This is the first time the US revokes a head of state’s visa for comments made during a UNGA visit.”
While the Colombian leader had returned to his home country by the time he learned his visa had been revoked, he condemned the move as a major breach of international law.
“What the US government is doing to me breaks all the norms of immunity on which the functioning of the United Nations and its General Assembly is based,” Petro wrote on social media on Saturday.
He pointed out that heads of state attending UN proceedings are supposed to receive total immunity.
“The fact that the Palestinian Authority was not allowed entry and that my visa was revoked for asking the US and Israeli armies not to support a genocide, which is a crime against all of humanity, demonstrates that the US government no longer complies with international law,” Petro continued. “The United Nations headquarters cannot continue to be in New York.”
Petro was not the only one to question whether the UN could continue to meet in the US after the Trump administration’s actions.
“This is the first time the US revokes a head of state’s visa for comments made during a UNGA visit,” Center for Economic and Policy Research senior research fellow Francisco Rodríguez pointed out on social media. “Both [Fidel] Castro and [Hugo] Chávez gave fiery off-site speeches in NY without retaliation. The action undermines the UN’s viability as a global forum and risks violating the 1947 HQ Agreement.”
The agreement states in part that those granted immunity to attend UN gatherings “shall not be required to leave the United States otherwise than in accordance with the customary procedure” applied to all diplomats.
Craig Mokhiber, a human rights lawyer and former UN official, wrote: “This is just the latest breach of the obligations of the US to the UN. Member states must get serious about moving the UN to a safer host country. And the US-Israel axis must be held accountable.”
Israel’s nearly two-year assault on the Gaza Strip, which several human rights experts and bodies including a UN commission have named a genocide, was a key point of contention during the 80th session of the UNGA.
Petro emerged as a major voice in defense of the Palestinians in Gaza, calling for the creation of an international armed force to enter Gaza and end the genocide.
He repeated that call when he spoke to protesters outside the UN on Friday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to speak.
“It is necessary to configure a more powerful army than that of the United States and Israel combined,” Petro told the crowd.
It was also during this speech that he urged US soldiers to “disobey the orders of Trump” and “obey the orders of humanity,” according to Reuters.
Colombia’s Interior Minister Armando Benedetti wrote on social media that Netanyahu’s visa should have been revoked instead.
“But since the empire protects him, they go after the only president who was capable of telling him the truth to his face,” Benedetti said.
"They wanted her bound, broken, and paraded as an example, but instead, she slipped their grip and lived out her life in exile, surrounded by people who honored her struggle and her survival," said one admirer.
By Olivia Rosane
Assata Shakur, a Black revolutionary who inspired generations of activists to struggle for a better world, passed away on Thursday in Havana, Cuba, where she had lived in exile from the US for over four decades.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced her death on Friday, saying it was caused by a combination of “health conditions and advanced age.” She was reportedly 78 years old.
“At approximately 1:15 pm on September 25, my mother, Assata Shakur, took her last earthly breath,” her daughter Kakuya Shakur wrote on Facebook on Friday. “Words cannot describe the depth of loss that I am feeling at this time. I want to thank you for your loving prayers that continue to anchor me in the strength that I need in this moment. My spirit is overflowing in unison with all of you who are grieving with me at this time.”
Shakur, who was born Joanne Deborah Byron and was also known as Joanne Deborah Chesimard, spent the first three years of her life in Queens, New York before moving to Wilmington, North Carolina. She then returned to Queens for third grade.
“Assata’s unwavering commitment to the liberation of her people continues to inspire generations.”
“I spent my early childhood in the racist segregated South,” she recalled in a 1998 letter to Pope John Paul II. “I later moved to the northern part of the country, where I realized that Black people were equally victimized by racism and oppression.”
Shakur became active in the anti-Vietnam War, student, and Black liberation movements while attending Borough of Manhattan Community College and the City College of New York. After graduation, she joined first the Black Panther Party and then the Black Liberation Army (BLA).
“I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the US government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one,” she wrote in 2013.
In 1973, she and two other BLA activists were stopped at the New Jersey Turnpike by two state troopers. By the end of the encounter, both Shakur’s friend Zayd Malik Shakur and trooper Werner Foerster were shot dead. In 1977, Shakur was convicted of Foerster’s murder in a trial she described as a “legal lynching.” Throughout her life, she maintained her innocence.
“I was shot once with my arms held up in the air and then once again from the back,” she wrote of the shootout.
She was sentenced to life in prison plus 33 years, but didn’t long remain behind bars.
“In 1979, fearing that I would be murdered in prison, and knowing that I would never receive any justice, I was liberated from prison, aided by committed comrades who understood the depths of the injustices in my case and who were also extremely fearful for my life,” she wrote.
In 1984, she claimed asylum in Cuba. Throughout her life, she also remained staunchly committed to the cause of liberation for all oppressed peoples.
“I have advocated and I still advocate revolutionary changes in the structure and in the principles that govern the United States,” she wrote to John Paul II. “I advocate self-determination for my people and for all oppressed inside the United States. I advocate an end to capitalist exploitation, the abolition of racist policies, the eradication of sexism, and the elimination of political repression. If that is a crime, then I am totally guilty.”
During her exile, her writings, including her 1987 autobiography, gained a wide audience and brought her story and voice to younger activists.
“It is our duty to fight for our freedom,” she wrote in one of the book’s most famous passages. “It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
She was also influential in the world of music and hip-hop, serving as godmother to Tupac Shakur and inspiring songs by Public Enemy and Common, among others.
The US government did not give up its pursuit of her. In 2013, under President Barack Obama, the Federal Bureau of Investigation named her the first woman on its “Most Wanted Terrorist” list. The FBI and the state of New Jersey also doubled the reward for information leading to her capture. That reward will now never be claimed.
“She died free!” one of her admirers, who uses the handle The Cake Lady, wrote on social media on Friday. “The US government, after decades of pursuit, never got the satisfaction of putting her in a cage. They wanted her bound, broken, and paraded as an example, but instead, she slipped their grip and lived out her life in exile, surrounded by people who honored her struggle and her survival.”
News of her passing inspired tributes from social justice and anti-imperialist leaders and organizations, including former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.)
“We honor the life of comrade Assata Shakur, a revolutionary who inspires and pushes all of us in the struggle for a better world,” wrote anti-war group CodePink on social media.
Community organizer Tanisha Long posted: “Assata Shakur joins the ancestors a free woman. She did not die bound by the carceral system and she did not pass away living in a land that never respected or accepted her. Assata taught us that liberation can not be bargained for, it must be taken.”
The Revolutionary Blackout Network wrote, “Thank you for fighting to liberate us all, comrade.”
The New York-based People’s Forum said: “We honor Assata’s life and legacy as a tireless champion of the people and as a symbol of hope and resistance for millions around the world in urgent fight against racism, police brutality, US imperialism, and white supremacy. Assata’s unwavering commitment to the liberation of her people continues to inspire generations.”
The Democratic Socialists of America vowed to “honor her legacy by recognizing our duty to fight for our freedom, to win, to love, and protect one another because we have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Black Lives Matter organizer Malkia Amala Cyril lamented to The Associated Press that Shakur died during a global rise of authoritarianism.
“The world in this era needs the kind of courage and radical love she practiced if we are going to survive it,” Cyril said.
Several tributes featured Shakur’s own words.
“I believe in living,” she wrote in a poem at the beginning of her autobiography.
“I believe in birth. I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth. And i believe that a lost ship, steered by tired, seasick sailors, can still be guided home to port.”
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