Collin Anderson of the Washington Free Beacon highlights legacy media reports that praise a particularly loathsome character.
Assata Shakur was convicted in 1977 of the first-degree murder of New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster. After escaping from prison in 1979, she became the first woman to land on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list.
Shakur was part of a previous wave of radical left-wing violence. She was a member of the Black Liberation Army, a Marxist militant group devoted to “killing cops” and seizing “control of their communities,” according to the Maryland state police.
You’d hardly know it from the media coverage of Shakur’s death on Saturday at the age of 78. She died in Cuba, the Communist nation to which she had fled, from health conditions and advanced age.
Here’s how America’s media outlets marked her death:
Washington Post: … “Over the decades, Ms. Shakur ascended to a near-mythical status among admirers as well as detractors. Opponents denounced her as a cop killer. Supporters saw her as a leader in the movement for Black empowerment. She described herself as ‘a 20th century escaped slave.’” …
New York Times: … “Assata Shakur was both lionized and demonized long after she and the Black Liberation Army, the militant group she had embraced, faded from broad public consciousness. To supporters she was a tireless battler against racial oppression. To detractors she was a stone-cold cop killer, the first woman to land on the F.B.I.’s ‘most wanted terrorists’ list, with $2 million in state and federal money offered for her capture.” …
… “To many Black people she was a folk hero. Several rap artists name-checked her or even devoted entire songs to her.”
Associated Press (as also published in NPR): … “The FBI put Shakur on its list of ‘most wanted terrorists,’ but, in her telling—and in the minds of her supporters—she was pursued for crimes she didn’t commit or that were justified.”
