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Sacrifice, Love, and R esistance: The Hip Hop Legacy of Assata Shaku rLisa M. CorriganAbstract: This essay examines the mythification of formerBlack Panther and Black Liberation Army member AssataShakur by hip hop artists Paris, Comm on, Mos Def, TuiyaAutry and Walidah Imarisha and provides a frameworkfor understand ing the importance of the " love ethic" inthe black liberation m ovement in the 1960s and 1970s aswell as today. It argues that the "love talk" of Commonand Paris provide conflicting accounts of Shakur'sactivism and legacy, though she is heroized as a livingmartyr who continues to inspire revolutionary blackactivism, particularly among women.

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say thatthe true revolutionary is guided by great feelingsof love. It is impossible to think of a genuinerevolutionary lacking this quality. Perhaps it isone of the great dramas of the leader that he orshe must combine a passionate spirit with a coldintelligence and make painful decisions withoutflinching. Our vanguard revolutionaries mustidealize this love of the people, of the mostsacred causes, and make it one and indivisible.They cannot descend, with small doses of dailyaffection, to the level where ordinary people puttheir love into practice.The leaders of the revolution have children justbeginning to talk, who are not learning to say"daddy"; their wives, too, must be part of thegeneral sacrifice of their lives in order to take therevolution to its destiny. The circle of theirfriends is limited strictly to the circle ofcomrades in the revolution. There is no lifeoutside of it.

- - Ernesto "Che" Guevara, "Socialism andMan," 1965In his explanation of the relationship betweenrevolutionary action and love, guerrilla leader CheGuevara underscores the importance of idealizing love of"the people" as well as the centrality of sacrifice withinthe revolutionary family to the work of vanguard social

movements. As one of the most well-recognized icons ofrevolutionary thought and action, Guevara points to arelationship between love and resistance in his writingsthat has been overlooked by many scholars, particularly inthe way that this relationship frames the heroism andmartyrdom that provide the contours of many socialmovements for liberation.Likewise, Guevara's commentary on the sacrifices offamilies enmeshed in revolutionary politics highlights therole of reproduction in the creation and maintenance ofvanguard ideology. Developed primarily as a rejection ofmodernity and the machinations of capitalism, Guevara'scomments on revolutionary ideology were influenced by

and contributed to the revolutionary theory of ThirdWorld writers like Franz Fanon, Paulo Friere, AimCsaire and other theorists of color. This body of theoryattempted to understand how populations could resisneocolonialism in productive ways, though Guevara'sinitial comments on revolution in his 1965 lette"Socialism and Man in Cuba" articulated a masculineconception of resistance. Hazel Carby writes.Clearly, in the general political and socialimagination the birth of future generations ismost frequently feminized, while revolution isoften represented as a homosocial act ofreproduction: a social and political upheaval inwhich men confront each other to give birth to anew nation, a struggle frequently conceived of interms of sex and sexuality. (127)

This gender dynamic, hinted at in Guevara's epigraphand expanded in Carby's work, illustrates how it is thawe come to understand men as true revolutionaries andwomen as those who must make sacrifices in their roles awives and mothers. This conception of revolution which sees men as the true revolutionaries and onlyacknowledges the singular role women can play amothers of new generations of activists is reductioniand erases the women who are active participants insocial justice movements as guerrillas, whether or nothey are also mothers and wives.This essay seeks to explore the ways in whichrevolutionary love is described in terms of sacrificeheroism, martyrdom, and, in particular, the genderedproduction of these terms by black revolutionaries. It alsoexamines the heroization and martyring of former BlackPanther and Black Liberation Army member AssataShakur by hip hop artists to understand how she ispositioned in the history of black revolutionary resistanceI argue that rapper Paris utilizes an immature form olove-talk to praise Shakur's strength as a black womanwhich reduces Shakur's revolutionary black activism tothe general struggles that women of color face every dayAlthough these struggles often form the basis focollective action by black women, his lyrics fail to eithedemand or acknowledge black revolutionary women whogo beyond daily struggle. On the other hand, rappeCommon's more mature love-talk characterizes Shakuoutside of Guevara's gender binary as a revolutionaryfigure, a living martyr, and hero because she is a selfsacrificing revolutionary guerrilla and mother leading aliberation movement against racism, brutality, and theprison-industrial complex. As this kind of leader, Shakucan continue to inspire social justice activism from exileto new generations of black activists working towardblack liberation, though she is not placed in a context oother historical black women who have struggled foblack liberation. Finally, I argue that slam poets Tuiya

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Autry and Walidah Imar isha ar t iculate the ideal love- talke n c o m p a s s i n g r e v o l u t i o n a r y l o v e . A u t r y a n d I m a r i s h au t i l i z e t h e l a n g u a g e o f b l a c k f e m a l e p o e t s i n t h e i r l o v e -t a l k d e s c r i b in g S h a k u r i n t e r m s o f h e r gu e r r i l la a c t i v is m ,h e r s t r e n g t h , a n d , m o s t i m p o r t a n t l y , h e r c o n n e c t i o n s t or e v o l u t i o n a r y b l a c k l i b e r a t i o n w o m e n a c r o s s t h e a g e s .B y ana l yz i ng t he se a r t i s t s , w e see how d i f f i cu l t i t i sf o r t h e r e v o l u t i o n a r y b l a c k f e m a l e a c t i v i s t t o b e

r e c o g n i ze d a s a le a d e r in s o c i a l j u s t i c e m o v e m e n t s a n dhow i mp or t an t i t i s f o r h i p hop a r t i s t s t o u se l ove - t a l k t or e c o v e r a r e v o l u t i o n a r y b l a c k p a s t f o r a B l a c k P o w e rl e a d e r l i k e A s s a t a S h a k u r , w h o c a n h e l p t o re g e n e r a t e a n dr e p r o d u c e b l a c k l i b e r a t i o n a c t i v i s m .Critical Memory, Heroes, Martyrs and Love

T o u n d e r s t a n d h e r o i s m a n d i t s i m p o r t a n c e t o s o c i a lm o v e m e n t s , w e m u s t u n d e r s t a n d t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f h o wr e m e m b e r in g h e r o e s c r e a t e s c u l tu r a l i d e n t i ty , bo t h fr o mt h e p e r s p e c t i v e o f t h e s t a t e a n d f r o m t h e p e r s p e c t i v e o fm a r g i n a l i z e d g r o u p s . O n e o f t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n tsoc i a l i z i ng f unc t i ons of na t i on - s t a t e s , f o r ex amp l e , i s " t hec o l l e c t i o n , d i s p e n s i n g , a n d u l t i m a t e l y t r a n s f o r m a t i o n o fs p e c i f i c - b u t n o n e t h e l e s s p o p u l a r - m e m o r i e s i n t o n a t i o n a lm e m o r i e s " (H a n c h a r d 5 1) . O n e i m p o r ta n t w a y t h a t t h en a t i o n - s t a t e c r e a t e s i d e n t i t y t h r o u g h m e m o r y i s i n t h ee l e v a t i o n o f i c o n s t h a t h a v e b e e n d e f e a t e d . W i th t h i sr e i f i ca t i on of t he def ea t ed , " [ t ] he vanq u i shed , oncev i e w e d a s d a n g e r o u s , a r e tr a n s f o r m e d i n t o t o t e m i c fi gu r e so f w i s d o m , s a g a c i t y , a n d p r e s c i e n c e " ( 5 1 - 5 2 ) .R e m e m b e r in g a n d ( re ) te l l in g l a r g e r -t h a n - l i fe a c c o u n t s o ft h e i r s e r v i c e t o a pe o p l e h e l p s tr a n s fo r m t h e s e i n d i v i d u a l si n t o i cons and mar t y r s ( R eed 1 6 4 ) . I n t h i s w ay , cu l t u r e sa n d g r o u p s u s e m e m o r y t o c o n n e c t t o t h e p a s t i n a p r o c e s so f " m y t h i f i c a t i o n " o f h e r o e s t h a t e n t a i l s " t h ec r ys t a l l i za t i on of cha r i sma t i c f i g u r e s o f p o l i t i c a l l i b e r a t i ona s c a t a l y s t s o f n e w e x i s t e n t i a l , h i s t o r i c , a n d s y m b o l i cl e g i ti m a c i e s " (K e m e d j io 9 1) . T h e s e m y t h s o f c h a r i s m a t i cm a r t y r s a n d h e r o e s t r a v e l t h r o u g h m e m o r y a n d t h e yemp has i ze s e l f - s ac r i f i ce f o r t he g ood of t he i r p eop l e ,c o n n e c t i n g t h o s e w h o s t r u g g l e n o w t o t h o s e w h o h a v es t r u g g l e d i n t h e p a s t . A s F i s h e r o b s e r v e s , t h i s p r o c e s s o fmyt h i f i ca t i on " i s l i ke f a l l i ng i n l ove" b ecause i t i nvo l vesp a s s i o n , wh i c h " c o m e s f ro m l o n g in g n o t o n l y fo r w h a th a s n o t be e n g i v e n fo r a l s o f o r wh a t c a n b e - t h e k i n d o fp a s s i o n w e n e e d t o c a r r y u s o v e r i n t o t h e f u t u r e , t o t h er ea l i za t i on of on l y vag ue l y p e r ce i ved i dea l s" ( 2 2 0 ) . S oc i a ll o v e f o r h e r o e s a n d f o r " t h e p e o p l e " c o n t r i b u t e s t o t h ep r o b l e m a t i c n a t u r e o f m e m o r y b e c a u s e i t i s s o c o n n e c t e dt o b o t h i n d i v i d u a l a n d c o l l e c t i v e i d e n t i t y a n d b e c a u s e t h ep a s s i o n t h a t f u e l s s o c i a l l o v e c a n b e i n d e p e n d e n t o fh i s t o r y . I n s t e a d , t h i s k i n d o f s o c i a l l o v e i s b a s e d u p o ni d e a l s f or h o w a p e o p le o r c u l t u r e s h o u l d i d e a l ly b e .

B u t m e m o r i e s a l s o f o r m t h e b u i l d i n g b l o c k s o fh i s t o r y , e s pe c i a l l y f o r th o s e w h o h a v e b e e n w r i t te n o u t o fo r e l i ded fr om of fi c i a l h i s t o r i e s o f the s t a t e fo r ju s t a ss t a t e s u s e m e m o r y t o p r o d u c e h e r o i c m y t h s t h a t g i v ep e o p l e i c o n s t o l o v e a n d r e v e r e , s o t o o , m u s t t h o s e w h or e s i s t t h e s t a t e p r o d u c e c o m p e t i n g h e r o e s . F o r b l a c k

Americans, in par t icular , public memory and myth oftenb e c o m e t h e h i s t o r i c a l r e c o r d h e c a u s e s o o f t e n t h e y h a v eb e e n e l i d e d f r o m p o p u l a r h i s t o r y . A s t h e r e c o l l e c t i o n s o fb l a c k A m e r i c a n s b e c o m e h i s t o r y , c o l l e c t i v e p u b l i cm e m o r y r e m i n d s b l a c k p e o p l e " o f t h e c h o i c e s e a c hg e n e r a t i o n m u s t m a k e w h e n f a c e d w i t h t h e u n b e a r a b l ew e i gh t o f r a c i a l a n d n a t i o n a l o p pr e s s i o n - a c c e d e o r q u i t,f i gh t o r neg o t i a t e , ju s t a s the i r fo r eb ea r e r s d i d " (H anc ha r d52). I n t h e c a s e w h e r e w r i t t e n h i s t o r y i s a b s e n t o ri n a c c e s s i b l e , " m e m o r y m a y s e r v e a s a b u l w a r k a g a i n s t t h ee r a s u r e , n e g l e c t , o r e l i s i o n o f a m e m o r y a s a p o t e n t i a ls o u r c e a n d o p p o r t u n i t y f o r h i s t o r y " ( 5 2 ) . C o n s e q u e n t l y ,c o l l e c t i v e m e m o r y a l l o w s b l a c k a c t i v i s t s t o m e a s u r et h e m s e l v e s a g a i n s t h e r o e s o f t h e i r p a s t . A c t i v i s t s c o m p a r ec o n t e m p o r a r y b l a c k h e r o e s t o m a r t y r s w h o d i e d f o r t h e i rcause , l i ke M al co l m X and M ar t i n Lu t he r K i ng , J r . ; t heyc i r c u l a t e s t o r i e s a n d a n e c d o t e s t h a t m y t h o l o g i z e m a r t y r sl i k e M a l c o l m a n d K i n g t o h e l p i n s p i r e r e s i s t a n c e t oo p p re s s i o n . T h i s c i r c u l a t i o n o f p o l it i c a l m a r t y r s h e l p se n h a n c e t h e m a r t y r d o m o f m o d e m h e r o e s , w h i c h o f t e nfu e ls n e w a c t iv i s m a n d c r e a t e s c o n t e m p o ra r y r o l e m o d e l s .

M a r t y r s a r e i m p o r t a n t b l a c k c u l t u r a l i c o n s b e c a u s et h e y a r e t h e v e r y d e f i n it io n o f s e lf- s a c r ifi c e i n t h e n a m e o fs o c i a l c h a n g e . B y v e r y d e f i n i t i o n , m a r t y r d o m i s a n a c t o fp o l i t i c a l su i c i de and i s o f t en q u i t e l i t e r a l l y t he end of ap o l i t i c a l a c t o r and t he i r c ap ac i t y f o r ag ency i n t he p ub l i csp he r e ( Eub en 6 - 7 ) . And mar t y r s s a t i s f y t he " p ow er f u ll ong i ng f o r some on e t o g u i d e u s t h r o u g h t h e h i s t o r i c a lcon t r ad i c t i ons w e f ace" ( F i she r 2 1 8 ) . M al co l m X has , o fc o u r s e , b e e n t h e m o s t r e f e r e n c e d m a r t y r o f t h e B l a c kP o w e r m o v e m e n t b e c a u s e h e " w a s a d a m a n t a b o u t t h en e e d f o r b l a c k s t o l o v e t h e m s e l v e s a n d t o b e p r o u d o ft h e i r h e r i t a g e . . . . M a l c o l m t a u g h t b l a c k s t o l o v e a n dr e s p e c t t h e m s e l v e s " (B u r r o w 1 6). M a l c o l m X i s i m p o r t a n ta s a b l a c k m a r t y r b e c a u s e h i s a s s a s s i n a t i o n i n 1 9 6 5" p r o v i d e d t h e b l a c k m a s s e s a n d a s i z a b l e n u m b e r o fy o u n g m i li t a n t l e a d e r s w i th a s i gn i fi c a n t m a r t y r i m a g e f o ry e a r s t o c o m e , " t h o u g h t h e s t a t e h a s s t i l l n o t e m b r a c e dh i m a s a w i s e , t o t e m i c l e a d e r ( Go r d o n 4 9 ).O n t h e o t h e r h a n d , t h e s t a t e h a s e m b r a c e d K i n g ' sn o n v i o l e n c e a s th e i d e a l f o rm o f ra c i a l s o c i a l pr o t e s t a n dK i n g h i m s e l f a s t h e m o d e l d i s s e n t e r , i n p a r t b e c a u s e h i si d e o l o g y o f n o n v i o l e n c e e m b r a c e d t h e J u d e o - C h r i s t i a np r i nc i p l e soc i a l l ove , o r agape, a n d t h e c o r r e s p o n d i n gG a n d h i a n p r i n c i p l e o f satyagrapha. K i n g ' s l o v e e t h i cd e m a n d e d t h e " u n c o n d i t i o n a l s u r r e n d e r t o t h e i d e a l o f

r e d e m p t i o n a s e x e m p l i f i e d b y J e s u s C h r i s t " a n d t h a ts u r r e n d e r i n v o l v e s l o v i n g e v e n o n e ' s e n e m i e s b e c a u s et h e y c a n a l w a y s b e e n r e d e e m e d ( J a m e s 5 ) . K i n g i su n d e r s t o o d a s a c i v i l r i g h t s m a r t y r b y b o t h t h e s t a t e a n db y t h o s e w h o d i s s e n t f r o m t h e s t a t e b e c a u s e h e w a sa s s a s s i n a t e d i n 1 96 8, b e c a u s e h e s e e m s t o h a v e p r e s a g e dh i s o wn m a r ty r d o m in h i s " I 'v e B e e n to t h e M o u n t a i n t o p "s p e e c h a n d b e c a u s e f o r m a n y p e o p l e , " K i n g ' s d e a t hs y m b o l i z e d t h e d e a t h o f h is d r e a m " f o r i n t e g r a t i o n ( J a m e s49).

A l th o u g h M a l c o lm c h a m p io n e d b la c k s e p a r a ti o n a n dK i n g a d v o c a t e d i n t e g r a t i o n , t h e m a r t y r d o m o f b o t h m e nm o b i l i z e d b l a c k r a d i c a l s t o o r g a n i z e a g a i n s t w h i t e

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supremacy because both men were committed to blackliberation despite the differences in their strategy (Conexviii). It is because both men were engaged in a dialecticwith the black masses and with each other, that theycreated rhetorical and political strategies in the service ofblack love and liberation (Bennett 70). And, it is nocoincidence that these two men are held up as martyrsbecause it was their eloquent public speaking that movedthousands to participate in black liberation. Malcolm andMartin held love and sacrifice as intrinsic to the self-esteem of black Americans since the black liberationmovement in the United States has its roots in the Judeo-Christian "love ethic" (hooks, "Love," xix). Both menarticulated this love ethic, though each emphasizeddifferent aspects of love in the context of black resistance,bell hooks writes, "While King had focused on loving ourenemies, Malcolm called us back to ourselves,acknowledging that taking care of blackness was ourcentral responsibility" ("Outlaw Culture ," 245).

But although Malcolm's separatism and King's earlysupport for integration were radical compared to the whitesupremacy of the status quo in the early 1960s, both menbecame black revolutionaries when they connected thestruggle of blacks in the United States to the struggles ofoppressed people of color across the globe and this is thepiece that bell hooks misses for all of her analysis on lovein black activism. For Malcolm, the black revolution wasthe rejection of integrating into white culture and adoptingwhite norms, a move he distinctly saw as colonialism inhis 1963 address titled "The Black Revolution." For King,it took the war in Vietnam to connect the struggles ofblack Americans to the postcolonial movements abroad.Ultimately, however, both leaders saw the struggle ofblack Americans through a larger, global lens thatconnected their plight to the oppression and resistance ofpeople of color across the globe and this is the feature thatforms the basis for black revolution.Central to the black revolution is the notion of love,though it is clear that this love both includes andtranscends blackness alone. For example, bell hooks talksabout the centrality of the "love ethic" in black liberationmovements because historically, it is for the private loveof family and the public love of the community that blackactivists have organized, even against slavery. The twinpillars of black liberation pedagogy rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition have been love and self-sacrifice,although hooks notes that today, "young listeners remainreluctant to embrace the idea of love as a transformativeforce. To them, love is for the nave, the weak, thehopelessly romantic" ("Love," xix). Despite the cynicismof many young people, martyrs like Martin and Malcolmare often used as starting points to reference thecontributions of living martyrs to movements for socialchange. Living martyrs are an extension of both thecelebrity and the ideologies of those martyrs who havebeen forcibly removed from political activism and eitherimprisoned or exiled and whose agency is restricted inways that their followers find unjust. Consequently, suchconditions of self-sacrifice, perceived injustices, defiant

acts against the white power structure, linkages to pasheroes, and rhetorical leadership elevate their status avictim, hero, and celebrity, ultimately resulting in theiimage circulation in popular memory as living martyrs.Living martyrs become historically importanbecause they push the boundaries of acceptability in given culture. This is particularly true of women of colorwho "train to be urban guerrillas by doing battle everyday with the apparatus of the state," which perpetuallworks to silence and erase them from culture and memor(Hurtado 853). As guerrillas, women of color musovercome losing their children and loved ones tviolence, prison, poverty, sexism, racism, and drug(853). Marginalized by violence and the oppressive forceof both racism and sexism, women of color participate ina collective struggle against white men and women awell as men of color to assert their existence in a culturintent upon pushing them to what Gloria Anzaldu hatermed "the borderlands." In the borderlands "they havbecome warriors, raging against their own invisibility(DeShazer353).

Although women of color fight against both racismand sexism and it is important to acknowledge this woragainst their erasure in a culture that privileges w hitenessit is also crucial to highlight the activism of the women ocolor who radically oppose and resist white supremacyparticularly those in movements for social justiceRevolutionary black female activists commit themselveto social justice and revolutionary politics and, in thiway, many overcome the gender binary and erasurimplicit in Guevara's epigraph. And, although hip hoculture has been often silent on the role of women isocial justice movem ents and has praised the sacrifice anheroism of black male militants, several hip hop artisthave embraced Black Power hero Assata Shakur anpraised her revolutionary resistance.Hip Hop, Love-Talk, and Assata ShakurHip Hop

By the mid-1960s and early 1970s, when black sociaorganizing was strong and visible, popular music haembraced the Black Power movement, whosorganizations disavowed integration as a political goaand instead embraced revolutionary black politics thaconnected the struggles of blacks in the United States tanti-apartheid and liberation movements by people ocolor across the globe. Although the Black Powemovement was associated with violence and the urbarebellions in cities following the assassination of MartiLuther King, Jr., the contributions by the Black PantheParty and the Black Liberation Army in cities across thcountry connected black liberation and revolutionarpolitics and action to the Third World revolutionartheory and praxis of leaders like Che Guevara. Grouplike the Black Panthers understood the power of music fothe revolution and began producing their own music fromwithin the organization to inspire action.' For exampl

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Black Panther Elaine Brown wrote and recorded theBlack Panther National Anthem and also cut a deal withMotown records to produce several albums of BlackPower songs.^ Where spiritual slave songs provided thebackdrop to the abolition movement and the early civilrights movement, hip hop helps black communitiesexpress the violence and poverty of urban life (Baker 45-6) . Rap music expresses the frustration of urban blackAmerica following the decimation of the socialmovements of the 1960s and 1970s by the EBI's CounterIntelligence Programs or COINTELPRO, which sought todiscredit, undermine, disrupt and destroy revolutionarysocial movements and groups in the Black Powermovement, the American Indian Movement, the anti-warmovem ent, and the student movement (Pough, 234).^

Histories of rap music and hip hop culture abound, sothis essay will not reproduce them at length. However, itis useful to understand that both rap music and hip hopculture began in the Bronx, New York, in the late 1970s.''Here, young blacks and Puerto Ricans began "rapping"about each other and playing the dozens over break beats.After the L.A. riots in 1992, contemporary rap musicbegan its ascendancy and it tackled the legacy of theReagan administration in the neighborhoods where theFBI eradicated Black Power organizations. Particularlyafter the L.A. riots in 1992, the eyes of the nation"focused on young urban prophets of postmodemity whohave been trying to push through for more than twodecades of what Grandmaster Flash called 'TheMessage'" (Baker, "Scene," 45-6). These young urbanprophets blended the social critiques and calls for actionof the liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s withdance beats to record their own resistance against theracism and conservative politics of the 1980s.Artists such as N.W.A., Public Enemy, Ice-T, IceCube, and Poor Righteous Teachers emerged in the 1980sand began to depict "the insufferable poverty, relentlesspolice brutality, and frustrated hopes of the black urbanscene" ("Scene," 46). The destruction of the Black Powermovement and its organizations and the rise of rap musicin L.A. and Oakland made celebrities out of the young(mostly) men, who continued the critiques of BlackPower by remembering the heroes of the black liberationmovement in their music. By memorializing men likeMalcolm X and King in their songs, they connected theurban blight of the 1980s with the segregation of the1960s and 1970s. Through their use of memory andstorytelling, they began to rebuild the social conscience ofthe late 1960s around themes of self-determination andlove, using the messages of both Malcolm and King tobuild coalitions of revolutionary struggle against whitesupremacy and neocolonialism (Bush 59). This kind ofcritical memory "is the very faculty of revolution"because it connects the struggles of black people to thestruggles of Third World people across the globe as itattempts to see humanity as something larger than, say,"race" (Baker, "Critical Memory," 7).These revolutionary black heroes embraced a globalperspective on violence and resistance and have been the

source of inspiration for much intellectual production inrap music.^ Consequently, "rap songs invoke groups thatar e doing something, as well as the black radical heroesand traditions of the recent past, such as Malcolm X, theBlack Panthers, H. Rap Brown and MLK" (Best andKellner, par 37). But what they are doing is speaking tocreate a collective memory built around thecommodification of male martyrs within a socialmovement that enjoyed tremendous female leadership. Aship hop glosses black women's revolutionary activismwhile memorializing radical black men, black women areerased and only popular memory and mythification canreinsert them into black liberation history.

As hip hop music builds up male heroes at theexpense of the women who form the backbone ofrevolutionary black politics, the public discourse aboutwomen moves away from the communalist language ofbrotherhood and sisterhood employed by blackrevolutionaries in the 1960s and 1970s and instead talksabout the relationships among black men and womenthrough the lens of commercialism and consumption, bellhooks writes that the "love ethic" that informed therhetoric of comm unalism in the 1960s is noticeably absentfrom "politically progressive radicals or from the Left"("Outlaw Culture," 243). She argues that this absence of acontinued focus on love as a source of resistance andinspiration "arises from a collective failure toacknowledge the needs of the spirit and anoverdetermined emphasis on material concerns. Withoutlove, our efforts to liberate ourselves and our worldcommunity from oppression and exploitation are doomed("Outlaw Culture," 243). By sacrificing a globalperspective that embraces the love ethic, manycontemporary hip hop artists have disconnectedthemselves from the communalism and Third Worldtheories that provided the backdrop of black revolutionarycoalition politics embraced by groups like the BlackPanther Party.Assata Shakur

Despite this rhetorical shift, one of the reveredrevolutionary icons in the hip hop community is formerBlack Panther and Black Liberation Army member AssataShakur. Shakur was bom JoAnne Deborah Byron (andlater married Louis Chesimard) on July 16, 1947, inJamaica, New York, where she grew up with her sister,mother, aunt, grandmother and grandfather. In hertwenties, she became a member of the New York chapterof the Black Panther Party (BPP) and chose her newname: Assata (meaning "she who struggles") Olugbala(meaning "love for the people") Shakur (meaning "thethankful"), in Arabic (Shakur 185-6). As a Black Pantherwoman, Shakur joined with women like Lynn French,Kathleen Cleaver, Erica Huggins, and Akua Njere tochallenge the various oppressions that characterized theexperience of working-class black women in the male-dominated BPP (Kelley 97). She worked on the breakfastprogram for school children as well as on many of the

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other Panther Survival Programs that helped feed andeducate inner city com mun ities. After the 1971 split in theBPP between those Panthers following Huey Newton andthose loyal to Eldridge Cleaver, Shakur went undergroundin the Black Liberation Army (BLA), the guerrilla arm ofthe BPP dedicated to armed resistance. Her separationfrom the BPP was voluntary and based on the her distastefor the increasingly paranoid style of political action thathad permeated the Party due to constant surveillance,harassment, and disruption by the local police and the FBIas well as her disagreement with the leadership style ofNewton and his inability to take criticism aboutmobilization strategies (Shakur 226-33).

Ultimately, Assata Shakur became one of manyunjustly imprisoned black activists ofthe movement whenCOINTELPRO decimated the BPP (Kitwana 153). OnMay 2, 1973, Shakur lay near death in a hospital bed aftera deadly shoot-out following a police stop on the NewJersey Tumpike. Shakur was traveling with two friendsand members of the BLA, Sundiata Acoli (formerly ClarkSquire), and her best friend Zayd Shakur, when two statetroopers stopped them for a faulty taillight. The shootouton the tumpike left two men, Zayd Shakur and NewJersey State Trooper James Harper, dead, and both AssataShakur and New Jersey State Trooper Wemer Foersterinjured.^

Shakur was a political prisoner of the state for fouryears before the trial in 1977, where an all-white juryconvicted her of killing state trooper James Harper andinjuring Wemer Foerster with the intent to kill. She wassentenced to life plus thirty-three years in prison. Inprison, she conceived and birthed her daughter, Kakuya.She escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility inNew York on November 2, 1979, and fied to Cuba (afterfive years underground) where much of herautobiography was written and where she currently livesin exile. Her memoir, Assata: An Autobiography, waswritten from exile in 1987 and is one of only three full-length autobiographies written by Black Panther women.As a igitive and as a captive, Assata Shakur, "arevolutionary black woman, became the symbol ofresistance against racist, capitalist, imperialist patriarchy,for which all progressive women longed" (Clarke 387).Today, she is the only known member of the BLA stillfree (Alkebulan 83).Because of her fidelity to this history of revolutionaryblack resistance, Assata Shakur has been a site ofcontestation from within popular culture as both aconvicted cop killer and as a living martyr of the BlackPower movement. Her image has been touted on t-shirts,pleas for her safe retum to the United States have beenmade on websites, and she has been praised in rap music(Asante 127). In fact, her autobiography became a popularread in the 1980s as hip hop emerged as a political spacefor social transformation (Reeves 23). Because of herheroism, Shakur is the topic of two popular hip hopsongs: Paris' "Assata's Song" off the album The DevilMade Me Remix (2004) and Common's "Love Song forAssata" from the album Like Water For C hocolate

(2000). Both songs are love letters from men who sethemselves as part of a larger history of black resistancethough they differ drastically in their uses of memory andin their praise of S hakur specifically.Hip hop artists have praised Assata Shakur for hestrength, leadership, and courage utilizing love-talk. I usthe term "love-talk" to describe this rhetorical feature oconsciousness-raising hip hop, that is inherently bothpersonal and political as it connects the struggles of thindividual against oppression to the collective resistanceof whole cultures. Love-talk is the language obrotherhood and sisterhood that sees humans aintrinsically connected to one another. Love-talk alsobinds together those pledged against oppression in whahooks terms an "ethic of love." hooks writes that"Without an ethic of love shaping the direction of oupolitical vision and our radical aspirations, we are oftenseduced, in one way or the other, into continuedallegiance to systems of domination-imperialism, sexismracism, classism" ("Outlaw Culture," 243). This "ethic olove," created and maintained through love-talk"emphasizes the importance of service to others," rathethan the selfishness of modem culture (249). It reverecommunity for "critical affirmation and dialogue withcomrades walking a similar path" (248). hooks notes thawhen we love, we resist domination. She writes, "Thmoment we choose to love we begin to move towardfreedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and othersThat action is the testimony of love as the practice ofreedom" (250).Paris' Love-Talk

Love-talk is the rhetorical strategy used by hip hopartists to express their admiration for Assata Shakur. Foexample, rapper Paris sees Shakur's story of struggle andsurvival as the story of al l black women. In "Assata'Song," Paris successfully reduces Shakur's radicaresistance to the kind of general praise for black women'strength that often elides the active black female leaderof social justice movements. In this song, Paris giverespect to women for their hard work as he apologizes fobeing insensitive in his youth to the constraints uponblack women living under the white supremacy of theUnited States. He talks about how women are objectifiedin this culture and recognizes the pain and struggle thathey live every day as well as the respect they deserve.Although Paris uses love-talk to revere black womenhe does so at the expense of being particular about thekinds of resistance that black women employ. This lack ospecificity becomes problematic because"[djecontextualized, militant historical black women'activism is recast in the image ofthe respectable middleclass black feminist or community worker areductionism leads to simplistic readings of the AfricanAmerican liberation struggle and those who waged it(James 96). Paris wants to chronicle the struggles of blackwomen; instead, he provides a reductionist account oboth the oppression and resistance of black women. And

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instead of talking about the kind of collective group lovethat forms the love-ethic of liberation movements, Parisseems to be talking about the romantic, heterosexual lovebetween individuals. In part, this may come from a placeof guilt, where Paris' sentiments are an attempt to freehim from the guilt of his treatment of women. In this case,too, the song is more about his personal catharsis and lessabout either the specificity of Assata Shakur'srevolutionary politics or the politics of black women'sleadership generally, though it does teach us that thepersonal is, in fact, political.

Paris continues by talking about how women shouldrespect themselves and leave abusive relationshipsbecause black women need more self-love. The problemhere is one of blaming the victim. Paris thinks that womenshould leave abusive men but rather than writing lyricsthat decry domestic violence or speaking to a maleaudience about the kind of respect that they need to showwomen, he tells women they do not need men, despite thefinancial and familial incentives that make heterosexualpartnership seemingly valuable for black women. Padscan talk about loving black women generally, but inexpressing this sentiment all black women becomehomogenized, indistinguishable, and battered.From here, the song becomes a confessional, whereParis talks about "runnin' game" on women andultimately concluding that he wants substance in hisromantic relationships. Paris writes a kind of eulogy forsocial, communal love by talking about the absence of thekind of love that people die for. Paris tries to expressdevotion to the higher ideals of love-talk but ultimatelycollapses into a much more patemalistic expression oflove that reflects the cynicism of which bell hooks speaks.

Although this song seems to be about empoweringwomen, it also privatizes and personalizes women'sissues, rather than highlighting those experiences centralto black women's lives or history. This move by Parishighlights the double-bind that often arises when blackwomen break gender, race, and class roles to becomerevolutionaries. Even while they are revered for their rolein the struggle and their hardships, often thecharacterization of their work fails to acknowledge theirleadership and, instead, inscribes them with moredomesticated images of their work for liberation.Although Paris makes the rhetorical choice to expressa kind of social love by invoking Assata Shakur, his love-

talk is ultimately an immature form. He does successfullyconnect Shakur to other women of color who struggleeveryday against repression and violence, but they arenameless and faceless. He moums the loss of social lovebut ultimately collapses into a self-indulgent lament forwomen that he mistreated. He invoked Shakur by namebut then fails to discuss the specifics of her heroism,which provides an incomplete iteration of love-talk.Comm on's Love Talk

Like Paris, rapper Common is also interested inAssata Shakur, though his love-talk is more nuanced.

Common begins his "Love Song for Assata" by invokingancestral spirits as well as the spirits of members of theBlack Panther Party and he dedicates the song to theoppressed who struggle daily against state repression ashe pledges himself to the spiritual journey that is blackresistance. Common then recalls the highlights ofShakur's autobiography: the shootout on the New Jerseyturnpike that left her critically wounded, herhospitalization and incarceration, the conception and birthof her daughter in prison, and her escape from the ClintonCorrectional Facility in New York. The chorus of thesong provided by Cee-lo reifies Shakur as a beautiful souland as a hero. He sings her name and pledges his love tothe memory of her because her power and pride radiatethe intensity of her commitment to black liberation. Thistype of passion connects the spiritual and the political andentails the deepest passions of love for the people and forstruggle against oppression (Lorde 56).

Although popu lar love-talk "is not the life-affirmingdiscourse of the sixties and seventies, which urged us tobelieve 'All you need is love,'" Common's song remindsus of the music that has historically connected love withstruggle (hooks xvii). This kind of love-talk characterizesCommon's song as he connects himself to Shakur and herradical legacy. At one point in the song, he even says thatthey come from the same earth and are shaped of thesame clay, connecting himself to Shakur as well ashighlighting their common struggle for black liberation.Artists like Common elevate heroes because "[they] seekour validation and support from the lives of others, fromthe awareness that others have done comparable work,from the knowledge that others have survived and that,where they did not, their work lived after them" (Fisher215). By saying that he and Shakur are built from thesame elements. Comm on is seeking validation for his ownwork in the struggle for black liberation and is praising anactivist whose liberation work lives on, just as his musicwill as well.The most moving part of the song is Common'sdescription of Shakur's daughter Kakuya, her birth, andthe attempts by the prison doctor to forcibly abortShakur's child. Here, Common praises her decision tohave a child, who will continue the struggle for blackliberation. For Shakur, Kakuya is a symbol of resistanceto white supremacy and prison politics and she providescontinuation of her mother's struggle. By loving a man

and having a child in prison, Shakur resists the bodilycontrol that the prison system enacts and her daughterrepresents a feminized part of the struggle for freedom.Shakur hopes that her baby will carry on the struggle intothe next generation and help rebuild and recreate themovement for black liberation. In an interview on Riker'sIsland in 1974, she is asked about the decision to getpregnant and says, "What we thought about when wetalked about getting pregnant was life and the friture. Allof us related to the fact that we fight from one generationto the next. And I didn't know if I would even haveanother chance to have a child.... And sitting in thecourtroom with all this shit happening it seemed to be the

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only thing that made s ense " (Angola 7).* For Shakur,passing down the tradition of revolutionary resistance wasa crucial component of her decision to conceive in prisonand as she passes down her narrative of this revolutionaryact, so too, does Common pass down her strategies ofresistance to a new generation of listeners.Common sings praises of Shakur's revolutionarymotherhood just as he sings of her inevitable separation

from her daughter in prison and in exile. He says that shewas "left to mother the Revolution," since it was manyyears before she saw Kakuya again. At first glance, thisreification of the Black Panther woman as a mother seem sfairly conservative and constraining like Guevara'sepigraph, since Shakur's participation in black liberationinvolved more than the decision to become a mother. Amore nuanced understanding of the politics ofincarceration, especially as it pertains to women of color,demonstrates how subversive having Kakuya really wasfor Shakur since the prison apparatus was so intent uponkilling her and her fetus. But the decision to conceive inprison is also a strategy to resist the genocide of blacks inAmerica that encompasses more than just the staterepression of revolutionaries and Common acknowledgesKakuya as an extension of Shakur's sacrifices as well asof her commitment to the struggle for black freedom evenfrom within prison and his song makes the connectionbetween Shakur's resistance to genocide and that ofheroes that resisted even slavery. Hochberg notes:It is by her and through her, through 'mother as asource of memory,' that one is rooted in agenealogy, a past, a people, a tradition. 'Mother'is often represented as a valuable source ofunmediated, direct memory and as such isfrequently and forcefully 'kept in the past,'located outside of history. (1)

Instead of representing Shakur as a mother outside ofhistory. Common's song reclaims and remembers her asan intrinsic part of the genealogy of radical black femaleresistance. Common sees Shakur as a survivor ofrepression, as an active participant in black liberation, andas a mother ofthe Revolution, clearly feminizing her rolein the production and regeneration of the Black Powermovement but also positioning her as an active leader insocial justice even today, as she nurtures black resistancefrom exile in Cuba. The song ends with Common'sconclusion that Shakur suffered and sacrificed so thatblack people could enjoy a freedom historically denied tothem. Common points to Shakur's self-sacrifice for herpeople as a way of elevating her as a living martyr.

At the end of the track. Common borrows from oneof Shakur's interviews where she is talking aboutfreedom. She admits that she doesn't know much aboutfreedom because she has never in her life experienced it.As Common narrates her life as a fugitive andrevolutionary, he participates in an affirmation of her rolein black liberation struggle and in her status as a blackhero who has survived immense violence as she worked

to free black people from repression. But he also chooseto include Shakur's own voice and words so that she mayspeak for herself within a state that has silenced her. Thimove has the potential to introduce Assata Shakur's voicand sentiments to a whole new audience througCommon's music, ensuring that new actors enter tharena of active struggle against oppression. It also enterher radical warrior voice into the public record of thosblack women who have resisted and survived statrepression and prison.

In an interview for Alphabeats, an online magazineCommon explains that he wrote the song after traveling tCuba with the Black August organization and meetinShakur. He says that meeting her was:one of the most special moments of my life. Itwas like meeting my mother. Like meeting asister. Meeting a cool friend. She's a livingmartyr, really, like somebody who sacrificedtheir life for freedom for all people. It was likemeeting history, like meeting the revo lution rightthere. (Sonzala)

Common's description of Shakur as a "living martyrhelps solidify her position as a leader in the blacliberation stmggle and justify her circulation in hip hoculture where black revolutionary organizing is ongoingAnd, in equating her with his mother, a sister or a friendhe exemplifies what Fisher sees as a central component tunderstanding how heroes provide a benchmark fohuman struggle. He sees her as the revolution itself, as ainspiration, as a beautiful sister in the communal strugglfor black liberation. Even as Shakur's autobiographattempts to regenerate revolutionary black activism, hemartyred image and body (womb) also act as a furtheregenerative force for Black Power activism as heresistance to genocide and repression is connected tthose women who led the stmggle against slavery.

Common's love-talk is certainly more sophisticatethan the love-talk in "Assata's Song." Where Paris fallshort in linking Shakur to historical heroism by black meand women. Common acknowledges her as a guerrillfighter, as a woman, as a mother, as a member of thcommunal struggle for black liberation. This love-talcentralizes Shakur's personal stmggles as well as hepolitical action in way that acknowledges Shakurhistorical specificity. And the decision to include Shakurown voice at the end of the track makes her visible anaudible in a profound way, introducing her voice and heideas to a whole new audience. The inclusion of Shakurvoice demonstrates that Common's love for Shakur iselfiess because he lets her speak for he rselfMos D ef s Love Talk

Although Common's love-talk provides a morcomplicated and specific account of Shakur's heroism, does not connect her explicitly to other black womerevolutionaries. "Love Song for Assata" exhibits a love

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talk that is still incomplete in that it does not link Shakur'sStruggles to the struggles of black women historically.How ever, there are artists in the hip hop community thatdo demonstrate the private and public dimensions of blackliberation strugg le, that acknow ledg e Shakur's status as aguerrilla fighter, and connect her to a vibrant history ofstruggle lead by black men an d w omen. This love-talkpays close attention to the importance of connectingShakur to the black w omen w ho have formed thebackbone and the vanguard of the struggle for blackliberation.

For example, rapper Mos Def provides an account ofShakur's heroism that acknow ledg es her specificity and healso links Shakur to liberation heroes. He comments onShakur's revolutionary history on the w eb site. Hands OffAssata!, a coalition of "activists, artists, scholars, electedofficials, students, parents, attorneys, w orkers, clerics andcommunity m emb ers w ho are standing in solidarityagainst the latest attack on Assata Shakur," namely theincreased bounty on her head and her placement on theterror w atch list (HandsO ffAssata.org ).' In his 2006statement about the increased bounty on Shakur's headtitled, "Assata Shakur: The Govemment's Terrorist is ourCommunity's Heroine," Mos Def describes Shakur as aheroine and details his first encounter w ith her imag e onthe "Wanted" posters in his neighborhood in Brooklyn.He w rites that the posters said:she w as a killer, an escaped convict, and armedand dangerous. They made her sound like asuper-villain, like something out of a comicbook. But even then, as a child, I couldn't believewhat I was being told. . . . I saw someone wholooked like she w as in my family, an aunt, amother. She looked like she had soul (Mos D ef).

Mos De f s account of Shakur also positions her as afamilial, m aternal figure w ho exemplified the brutalrepression of black activism in the 1960s and 1970s asw ell as the resistance of radical black w omen. H iscomm ents comb ine recognition of her activism w ith hersense of w oman-ness as he critiques the g ovemm ent'sframe-up of her in the early 1970s. He w rites that thegovemment's depiction of her was a caricature and thateven as a young child he resisted such an account. Insteadof seeing her as a villain, Mos D ef s love-talk depicts heras a family member and highlights his perception of heras a community member. This account stresses the kind ofcommunal love ethic that enables the practice of freedom.Mos D ef s piece concludes w ith a denunciation ofher trial and the verdict as w ell as a description of her as aliving martyr:

She w as guilty of calling for a shift in pow er inAmerica, and for racial and economic justice.Included on a short list of the many people w hohave made that call and w ere either criminalized,terrorized, killed or blacklisted are PaulRobeson, Martin Luther King, Schw emer,

Chaney and Goodman, Medgar Evers and Ida B.Wells. ("Assata Shakur")

Mos Def s comments rightfully include Shakur among themen and w omen w ho became martyrs for black liberationand civil rights follow ing harassment and murder. MosDef acknow ledg es both Shakur's specificity and herconnection to other b lack heroes w ho strug g led, includinganti-lynching crusader and joum alist Ida B. Wells.Love Talk Among Women

In addition to Mos Def, b lack w omen poets haveused love-talk to describe the practice of freedomembraced by black revolutionary Assata Shakur. Eorexample, in her poem "For Assata," Audre Lorde w ritesthat Shakur's "sm ile has b een to w ar" and that she dreamsof Shakur's:freedomas my victoryand the victory of all dark w omenw ho forg o the vanities of silencew ho w ar and w eep. (28)She calls Shakur her "sister w arrior" and w rites:Joan of Arc and Yaa Asantew aembraceat the back of your cell. (28)

Like Lorde, Alice Walker lists Shakur along w ithhistorical heroes of the past like Harriet Tubman,Sojoumer Truth, Mary McLeod Bethune, ShirleyChisholm and others as heroes w ho are "black-skinnedand fighting and screaming through the solid rock ofAmerica," protesting the treatment of black Americans(Walker 307). Finally, slam poets Tuiya Autry andWalidah Imarisha call Shakur a "Supa Soul Sista" andthey:

call upon the forces of Isis and Harriet Tub manSojoumer Truth and NefertitiAssata Shakur and Cleopatrato reign dow n the fury o f centuries of oppressiondegradation and silence on your headb ecause we w ill not be silent anym oreand w ith the voice of a hundred millionsistas moaning across the bloody pages ofhistoryyou w ill feel our rage!b ecause I have the pow er to resurrect the pasttrain it like a pit bulland sic it on your ass! (325)

All three of these poetic selections remember Shakur as ahero and position her w ithin a tradition of b lackrevolutionary female resistance that embraces the lineageof w omen w arriors w ho have eschew ed docility andsilence for collective vocal protest against oppression.These poetic expressions of Shakur's resistance exist as

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cultural artifacts that demonstrate the flexible ways inwhich heroes are culturally constructed and remembered.In the com pany of such heroes as Nefertiti, Cleopatra, andYaa Asantewa, the writers connect Shakur to the traditionof female leadership against neocolonialism in Africa,where these women wielded power and wealth to resistcolonization and imperialism.'" By invoking SojoumerTmth and Harriet Tubman, they place Shakur within thecontext of slavery and the resistance to slavery to whichblack women were central." And, in connecting her toMary McLeod Bethune and Shirley Chisholm, Shakur islinked to the modem civil rights tradition that has beenoften described as one led entirely by men, despite thestrong leadership of revolutionary black women.'^Although these women seem unconnected on the surface,they are all notable for their leadership qualities in thenations and organizations of which they were apart aswell as for their tenacity, courage, and adaptability in theface of the multitude of dangers they faced by simplybeing women of color.

These comparisons heroize Shakur as a revolutionarywarrior who will fight for and love her people in the waythat Guevara explains, though these descriptions alsofeminize her activism. By underscoring the leadership ofblack women in revolutionary struggle as active and vocalparticipants in black liberation, these poets go beyond thegender politics eschewed by Guevara in his epigraph, andinstead highlight the revolutionary politics and vanguardnature of black women throughout the course of humanhistory. They strategically restore Sha kur's activism to therevolutionary black past and they create space tounderstand black women and the uniquely femalecontributions to leadership they have historically madethrough their formal political power as well as throughavenues like motherhood.Conclusion

For her part, Shakur has posted several open letterson websites dedicated to her that elucidate her concemsabout the future and the problems facing black youth andthe hip hop generation, including police brutality and theprison-industrial complex. In her 1998 "Open Letter," shewrites:But at this moment, I am not so concemed aboutmyself Everybody has to die sometime, and all Iwant is to go with dignity.... I am moreconcemed about our younger generations, whorepresent our future. I am more concemed thatone-third of young blacks are either in prison orunder the jurisdiction of the "criminal in-justicesystem." I am more concemed about the rise ofthe prison-industrial complex that is tuming ourpeople into slaves again. I am more concemedabout the repression, the police bmtality,violence, the rising wave of racism that makes upthe political landscape of the U.S. today. Ouryoung people deserve a future, and I consider it

the mandate of my ancestors to be part of thestmggle to insure that they have one.Here, Shakur reasserts her living martyrdom through thlanguage of self-sacrifice that makes the stmggle morimportant than her own life. She then re-centers policbmtality, the prison-industrial complex, the death penaltyand political prisoners in the context of the poverty andracism that continue to characterize the racial landscapofthe United States. Shakur talks about the importance ofuture generations in the stmggle for black dignity andinsists that they carry out the tradition of black resistancand, in this way, she utilizes the revolutionary black pasas a rhetorical resource to express her hopes for thfuture.

But Shakur's statements from exile also positionblack women at the center of black liberation stmggle. Inher 1995 "Message to My Sistas," she says:BLACK PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE FREEUNLESS BLACK WOMEN PARTICIPATE INEVERY ASPECT OF OUR STRUGGLE, ONEVERY LEVEL OF OUR STRUGGLE. I thinkthat Black women, more than anybody on theface of the earth, recognize the urgency of oursituation. Because it is We who come face toface daily with the institutions of our oppression.And because it is We who have bome the majorresponsibility of raising our children. And it isWe who have to deal with the welfare systemsthat do not care about the welfare of ourchildren. And it is We who have to deal with theschool systems that do not educate our children.It is We w ho have to deal w ith the racist teacherswho teach our children to hate themselves. It isWe who have seen the terrible effects of racismon our children. I JUST WANT TO TAKE AMOMENT OUT TO EXPRESS MY LOVE TOALL OF YOU WHO RISK YOUR LIVESDAILY STRUGGLING OUT HERE ON THEFRONT LINES.

Here, Shakur emphasizes the importance of bothcollective female stmggle as well as matrilineage in thsurvival and stmggle of black people. In this way shacknowledges the stmggles of black women as Paris doesbut she is also encouraging black women to resistogether because the exigency is so great and theichildren are at such great risks. Shakur highlights thspecific ways in which women must be mobilized, nonecessarily for themselves but for their children. FoShakur, matemity is a means through which one can wagea mighty war against white supremacy in all of its formsAnd so, she sends out love to the women who stmggleveryday, the warriors "on the front lines" fighting fotheir children's future. It is this love ethic for her peoplthat defines Shakur's activism and is partially refiected inCommon's "Love Song for Assata" and fully reflected in

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the comments by Mos Def and the poems by AudreLorde, Alice Walker, Tuiya Autry, and Walidah Imarisha.Shakur's presence in hip hop culture illustrates thelegacy of her regenerative strategies on behalf of theBlack Power movement. We can see hip hop activistspositioning Shakur in varying degrees as a guerrillaleader, a living martyr, a feminized icon of struggle, and amotherall of which are generated in Shakur's writings.

Her celebrity is heightened by her role as a hero at theforefront of the hip hop generation and it helps her tohighlight the new agenda for Black Power agitation,which must deal with police brutality, prison polices, thedeath penalty and political prisoners, who wereincarcerated for their movement leadership. Shakur'simportance as a hero in hip hop culture is incrediblyimportant because as one in a long line of black womenwho have struggled for black liberation, her legacy isoften overlooked in histories of the BPP or in civil rightsmore generally.But her role as a hero extends beyond the borders ofthe United States. Femandes explains:Like the African American activists who visitedCuba in the 1960s and 1970s, from StokelyCarmichael to Angela Davis and AssataShakur...African American rappers such asParis, Common Sense, Mos Def, and TalibKweli spoke a language of black militancy thatwas appealing to young Cubans. (91)

These American rappers, making their pilgrimage to meetand spend time with Assata Shakur, have brought theirmusic and their messages of both love and struggle to theyouth of Cuba, struggling under the repression of Castro.Through their connection with Shakur, rappers like Paris,Common, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli are helping to shapethe social and political ideologies of the hip-hopmovement in Cuba (92). In today's shifting politicalclimate, following Castro 's abdication to his brother Raul,the hip hop movement will have even more opportunitiesto shape the emerging political landscape. Hopeftally,emerging hip hop traditions will embrace the legacy ofrevolutionary black women in the United States andabroad that have embraced the ethic of love that enablesthe practice of freedom.In connecting love-talk and liberatory practice, theties between rap music and revolutionary politicselucidate the importance of hip hop culture torevolutionary black life both historically and for futuregenerations. In seeing the emergence of love-talk in Paris'"Assata's Song," scholars can appreciate the importanceof acknowledging the everyday struggles of black womento creating black memories and black history. And, byhighlighting the love-talk in a song like Common's "LoveSong for Assata" that connects Assata Shakur to arevolutionary black past often ignored and heroizes her asa warrior who will fight for people resisting oppression,scholars can understand how love-talk em erges in hip hopto demonstrate the specific choices and sacrifices of black

women in the movement for black freedom. Finally, bychronicling the leadership of black women inrevolutionary struggle as active and vocal participants inblack liberation, artists like Mos Def, Audre Lorde, AliceWalker, Tuiya Autry, and Walidah Imarisha go beyondthe gender politics of early Third World revolutionarytheory to highlight the revolutionary politics andleadership of black women throughout the course ofhuman history. In connecting Assata Shakur to the vibranthistory of revolutionary black women who are oftenforgotten and ignored in black history, hip hop artistsstrategically restore Shakur's activism to the memoriesthat build black history through a love-talk that is at oncepersonal and political. This creates a rhetorical space tounderstand black women and the uniquely femalecontributions to leadership they have historically madethrough their formal political power as well as throughavenues like motherhood. This essay, then, excavates arole for revolutionary love in both black history and blackpopular culture and demonstrates how memory connectsthe two in a way that highlights the contributions of blackrevolutionary w omen to black resistance.Notes1 Soul culture, in particular, promoted black liberation values like"black is beautiful" though film, music, and television (See.Guillory and Green, 1998).2 Elaine Brown 's albums included Seize Ihe Time and Elaine Brown(Brown, 1992, p. 306-12)3 See also (Churchill and VanderW all, 1990/2002).4 There is not enough space here to provide the history and politicsof hip-hop, which have been tackled elsewhere in great length. See(Asante, 2008), (Reeves, 2008), (Ogbar, 2007), (Watkins, 2006),(Chang, 2005), (Kitwana, 2002), (George, 1999), (Henderson,1996) and (Rose, 1994).5 Rap is the music but hip hop is the culture that includes rap,breakdancing, graffiti culture, scratching, etc. In the most recenthistoriography of the Black Power movement, Peniel E. Josephargues that the relationship between Black Power and hip hopculture are quite natural: "[fjor a generation of scholars who havecome of age in an American social and political landscape markedby the rise of Hip Hop culture, the decline of the Civil RightsMovement, and conservative appropriation of that movement'sicons and ideals. Black Power offers radical activists whose livesand works resonate with intellectuals seeking to come to grips witha mean season of racial setbacks in American life" (Joseph 10).The close relationship between Black Power and hip hop explainswhy, in 2004, Draft Records/Counterfio Productions issuedPanthers, a vinyl EP featuring seventies icons The Last Poets,modem black nationalist rappers Dead Prez, and indie rapperCommon. Additionally, Black Power: Music For Change wa s

released on the Shout! Factory Label in 2004, and features HueyNewton, Marvin Gaye, Kathleen Cleaver, Sons of Slum, The SoulChildren, Malcolm X, The Temptations, The Watts Prophets, RapBrown, The Last Poets, and Stokely Carmichael, among others.These albums demonstrate the fusion between hip-hop and protestas well as the renewed interest in Black Power politics.6 At the scene, Sundiata Acoli was arrested and he was laterconvicted of the same crimes as Shakur. He is still a politicalprisoner. In New Jersey, anyone at the scene associated with afelony crime can be prosecuted for that crime, so Shakur wasprosecuted for murder despite the fact that ballistics and medicalexaminers noted that due to a bullet through her wrist, she couldnot have fired a gun to kill Trooper Foerster. For a longerdiscussion of the shoot-out and subsequent trial, see (Williams1993).7 Although there are many other hip hop songs that deal with

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revolutionary black politics, these are the only two hip hop songsthat address Assata Shakur's participation in the Black Powermovement in a substantive way.8 Assata Shakur, "Partial Interview with Assata Shakur at Rik er'sIsland Women's House of Detention," Assata Speaks... and thePeople Speak on Assata, ed. Bibi Angola (Bibi Angola: 1980), 7.9 In 2006, New Jersey Governor increased the bounty on Shakur'shead from $250,000 to $1,000,000 in an attempt to win supportfrom the fraternal ord er of police in her bid for re-election .10 Nefertiti was Pharoah Akhena ten's wife and Queen in Egypt fromc. 1370 BC to c. 1330 BC and scholars believe that she may havereigned after her husband's death. Cleopatra was the wily Queen ofEgypt whose alliances with Roman leaders Julius Caesar and MarcAntony to keep Egypt's sovereignty are legendary. And, YaaAsantewaa was Queen Mother in the Asante Confederacy in whatis now Ghana. Scholars believe that she led the Ashanti Rebellionagainst British colonialism at the turn of the twentieth century. Allthree women of color were African warrior queens who servedtheir people in struggles against occupation or colonialism andtheir stories connect the struggle of black Americans to the femalerevolutionaries that populate their African past.

11 Sojoum er Truth was a black female orator who spoke at women 'srights conventions on the importance of suffrage for black womenand Harriet Tubman was a principal architect of the UndergroundRailroad, which helped slaves escape slavery to the North and toCanada. Both of these black women risked their lives torevolutionized black people to fight against slavery and to resistcolonialism and they are particularly important heroines to blackwomen revolutionaries who seek to emulate them in word anddeed.

12 Mary McLeod B ethune was a pioneer of the club movem entamong black women in the first half of the twentieth century aswell as a civil rights activist and educator of black girls. Hertireless fight for education was a labor of love that highlights theimportance of global knowledge to the struggle against oppression.Shirley Chisholm was the first black female member of Congress(D-NY) elected in 1968 and in 1972 she became the first blackwoman candidate for President on a major party platform. Shecreated a diverse coalition of support for issues affecting inner cityresidents and she opposed the Vietnam War as well as Americanimperialism. She became an important hero for black women inparticular because her work was dedicated to improving the livesof black people by building networks of supporters committed to acommunal ethic of social justice. These two heroines are madesignificant contributions to the lives of black people, and blackwomen in particular, as they struggled to emancipate blacks fromthe white supremacist policies of the U.S. government.

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Lisa M. Corrigan, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor ofCommunication at the University of Arkansas. She studies the BlackPower movement, feminism, and post-Revolution Cuban politics.

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