If that is a crime, then I am totally guilty." .
The Civil Rights Movement in the United States was a political, legal, and social struggle to gain full citizenship rights for Blacks and to gain racial equality. The goals of the civil rights movement was to end segregation, the system of laws and separating of blacks and whites that whites used to control blacks after slavery was abolished. During the civil rights movement, individuals and civil rights organizations fought to end segregation and discrimination with protest marches, boycotts, and refusal to put up with segregation laws. One of the most noticeable groups that fought to end civil rights was the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Black Liberation Army (BLA). .
Assata Shakur (government name JoAnne Chesimirad) was a Black Panther, which was a militant black political organization originally known as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The BPP believed in black self-defense and restructuring American society to make it more politically, economically, and socially equal. They were armed with weapons and wore the party's distinctive black leather jackets and black berets. The BPP grew throughout the late 1960s, and eventually had chapters all around the country.
She later became a Black Liberation Army (BLA) leader in the early '70s. The Black Liberation Army emerged from poor conditions in Black communities (conditions of poverty, indecent housing, unemployment, poor medical care, and poor education). The concept of the BLA occurred because of the political, social, and economic oppression of Black people in this country. .
Since she was part of these two militant groups, she was a target of the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program operation. Assata was arrested in a shoot out. She was shot twice in the arm. A State Trooper was killed. She was charged with murder along with Sundiata. Zayd Shakur, traveling in the car with Assata, was also killed.
