Hard Knock Radio marks the passing of Assata Shakur with a tribute anchored by former political prisoner, Black Panther, and Black Liberation Army member Dhoruba Bin-Wahad—her close friend and comrade. The conversation blends memory, movement history, and present-day geopolitics, and features the voice of Assata herself through archival excerpts: segments from the late journalist Gil Noble’s documentary and from an interview conducted by longtime Bay Area activist Dorset Nun of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.
Dhoruba opens with grief and gratitude, stressing Assata’s impact on multiple generations across the African diaspora. He recalls bringing a young Assata—then a City College student in the Panthers’ medical cadre—into full membership despite a freeze on new recruits after the Panther 21 case. As leadership drifted right and state repression intensified, Assata’s role evolved: organizing community health work (including sickle-cell testing), setting up underground medical support, and ultimately moving within the clandestine networks that would be known as the BLA.
From there, Dhoruba situates Assata’s exile in Cuba within a broader map of international solidarity. He argues that Cuba’s long support for Black liberation—rooted in relationships that stretch back to Malcolm X and Che—helps explain why the island granted Assata asylum despite immense U.S. pressure. He connects this history to Cuba’s role in anti-colonial struggles in Africa and to today’s shifting politics in the Caribbean and Latin America. In this telling, Washington’s stance toward Havana and Caracas, and even reward escalations for Assata during the Obama era, reflect the enduring insult U.S. law enforcement felt over her prison escape and protection abroad.
The conversation also revisits the intense political climate of the late 1960s and 1970s: COINTELPRO disinformation, internal Panther fissures, and the rise of “law and order” frameworks that ballooned prisons and targeted Black communities. Dhoruba is blunt about police unions’ political power and critiques attempts—celebrity and otherwise—to “out” or leverage access around Assata while she lived in exile. Throughout, he insists that support for Palestinian self-determination and global anti-colonial movements shaped the Panthers’ worldview and the backlash they faced.
Asked what to hold onto now that Assata has “joined the ancestors,” Dhoruba centers discipline, compassion, and courage—especially for young women who see themselves in her example. He frames her life as a model of stepping up when leaders fall, maintaining networks under pressure, and keeping eyes on the larger enemy: the structures that control the life chances of Black people. The hour closes with appreciation for Cuba’s protection of Assata and a reminder that her spirit should quicken, not quiet, our organizing: honor her by building the kind of power that can protect communities and defend truth.