Powerful Quotes From Assata's Autobiography

By Highlighting these quotes, I hope to amplify Assata's voice and showcase her revolutionary insights.

Love is contraband in Hell, / cause love is an acid / that eats away bars. / But you, me, and tomorrow / hold hands and make vows / that struggle will multiply" (130).

"Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory. The two have to go together. I was determined to do both" (180).

"The rich have always used racism to maintain power. To hate someone, to discriminate against them, and to attack them because of their racial characteristics is one of the most primitive, reactionary, ignorant ways of thinking that exists" (139).

"This world is blind / and slight of mind / and cannot see / How beautiful you are. / I saw your light. / And it was shining" (64).

"No movement can survive unless it is constantly growing and changing with the times. If it isn't growing, it's stagnant, and without the support of the people, no movement for liberation can exist, no matter how correct its analysis of the situation is" (181).

"Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them" (139).

"We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains" (52).

"I want to help free the ghetto, not run away from it, leaving my people behind" (154).

"Because our children are our futures and i believe in the future and in the strength and rightness of our struggle" (93).

"People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave" (262).

"The schools we go to are reflections of the society that created them. Nobody is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them" (181).

"The usual way that people are taught to think in amerika is that each subject is in a little compartment and has no relation to any other subject. For the most part, we receive fragments of unrelated knowledge, and our education follows no logical format or patter. It is exactly this kind of education that produces people who don't have the ability to think for themselves and who are easily manipulated" (35).

"i see a world where hatred / has been replaced by low. ' and ME replaced by WE" (259).

"The almighty dollar is king; those who have the most money control the country and, through campaign contributions, buy and sell presidents, congressmen, and judges, the ones who pass the laws and enforce the laws that benefit their benefactors" (139).

Citation: Shakur, Assata. Assata: An Autobiography. Lawrence Hill, 1987.