Here in New York, family and friends gathered at Riverside Church on Saturday for a memorial service celebrating the life of Assata Shakur, the legendary Black Panther and Black liberation activist who died last September at the age of 78 in Cuba. Assata Shakur was convicted in the May 2, 1973, killing of a New Jersey state trooper during a shootout that left one of her fellow activists dead. She was shot twice by police during the incident. In 1979, she managed to escape from jail and flee to Cuba, where she received political asylum. She long proclaimed her innocence. This is the renowned abolitionist, author and activist Angela Davis speaking at Saturday’s memorial service.

Angela Davis: “And so, when we defend Assata Shakur today, we are defending all radical movements, antiracist movements, abolition feminist movements, anti-Zionist movements, antiwar movements, anti-capitalist movements.”