Tupac's Godmother Has Become The First Woman On The FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist List
Chesimard — aka Assata Olugbala Shakur — also happens to be the godmother and aunt of rapper Tupac Shakur. His godfather, Mutulu Shakur, is also incarcerated and was accused of aiding Chesimard's eventual escape from prison.
In 1971, Chesimard and two of her cohorts were stopped on the New Jersey turnpike for a broken tail light.
The routine stop turned into a shoot-out that left one New Jersey trooper dead and another injured.
Chesimard was convicted in 1973 of first-degree murder. She later escaped prison in 1979 and ended up in Cuba with political asylum by 1984.
She has been suspected of, tried, and acquitted of several felonies, including armed robberies, bank robberies, and execution-style slayings of police officers. She's often named as one of the founders of the Black Liberation Army, and the people who knew her well said she was its "soul."
New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa told NBC, “I’m not going to get into exact means. What we’re saying is there’s now $2 million for her safe return to New Jersey that’s available.”
Chesimard is 65 years old, but authorities believe she still "remains an inspiration" to militant separatist movements in the U.S.
“Some of those people, and the people that espouse those ideas, are still in this country,” Aaron Ford, special agent-in-charge of the FBI’s Newark office, told NBC. “So we’d be naïve not to think that there’s some communication between her and the people she used to run around with.”
Rappers Common, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Paris, and others have all written tributes or referenced Chesimard in their songs.