“Howard University professor and ‘1619 Project’ creator Nikole Hannah-Jones is facing criticism for a tribute she wrote recently for the late Assata Shakur, a convicted murderer and terrorist,” reports The College Fix. In a December 16 op-ed in The New York Times, Hannah-Jones suggested that Shakur was part of a class of “Black freedom fighters” that includes Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner.
“Shakur was lionized in rap songs and taught in college classes, and her likeness could be found in classrooms and community centers in Black neighborhoods across the nation,” Hannah-Jones wrote.
The College Fix notes that “before fleeing the country, Shakur was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, a domestic terrorist group … linked to ‘at least 20 fatalities.'”
A jury found Shakur guilty as to one of those 20, a New Jersey police officer, in 1977, as Hannah-Jones herself recognized. Shakur later escaped from prison and fled to Cuba.
In 2005, the FBI classified Shakur as a domestic terrorist, and, in 2013, it added her to its “most wanted” list.
“Liberation came with unbearable costs. But Shakur, who saw herself as an escaped slave, died free,” Hannah-Jones wrote.
“However, Hannah-Jones’ portrayal of the activist, much like her claims about America’s supposedly racist founding in the ‘1619 Project,’ were met with swift criticism,” notes The College Fix.
Reason magazine writer Billy Binion questioned the New York Times’ decision to run her slanted op-ed.
“The fact that some leftists still romanticize Assata Shakur as a ‘freedom fighter’ is just depressing. She escaped prison & stumped for the *Cuban government*—a regime that jailed dissenters & ran concentration camps. The ignorance is stunning,” Binion wrote on X.
Binion noted the irony of Hannah-Jones’ ode to Shakur, given her response to Charlie Kirk’s murder earlier this year: She claimed tributes to the Turning Point USA founder were “dangerous” because they would mainstream his “extremist views.” Shakur’s views were far more extremist, supporting communism and the overthrow of the U.S. government.
Similarly, columnist Ira Stoll criticized Shakur’s terrible legacy in the Washington Free Beacon, noting the serious omissions and distortions in Hannah-Jones’ New York Times op-ed:
The Times…doesn’t mention the name of the murdered state trooper. He was Werner Foerster, 34, a U.S. Army Vietnam veteran who had a wife, Rosa Charlotte Heider Foerster, and a son, Eric, and a vegetable garden.
The Times…doesn’t tell you the race of the person who was president in 2013 when the U.S government added Joanne Chesimard to the list of most wanted terrorists. That was President Barack Obama. The Times doesn’t tell you the name of the FBI special agent in charge in Newark who put Chesimard on that list. He is Aaron Ford, who was quoted in a 2013 press release saying, “Joanne Chesimard is a domestic terrorist who murdered a law enforcement officer execution-style.” If the Times is going to say the race of the people in the law enforcement system or the government is relevant, it seems like a double standard to mention the jurors but not the president or the FBI official [who was black just like Shakur].
As The College Fix notes, “Hannah-Jones teaches journalism at Howard University. She repeatedly has faced scholarly criticism for making inaccurate claims about slavery and America’s founding, as well as for her ‘rejection of objectivity’ in journalism.”
In college classes, many students have been assigned left-wing books that falsely depict Shakur as an oppressed political dissident.
Cornell University has had a class called “Queer Marxism.” Occidental College offers the course “Black Queer Thought,” which critiques “the demands” of “patriarchy and capitalism.”
“To love capitalism is to end up loving racism. To love racism is to end up loving capitalism…Capitalism is essentially racist; racism is essentially capitalist,” says Ibram Kendi’s book How to Be An Antiracist, which has been assigned reading for many students.
