Assata, Black Madonna

Chapter 4 discusses Assata Shakur’s addition to the Most Wanted Terrorist list in 2013. The chapter builds on Dhoruba bin Wahad’s argument that some of her supporters’ attempts to save her from this designation turn her into a Black Madonna, an abstract heroine figure, or a version of man, made innocent via racial blackness. Analysis of Shakur’s addition shows that a focus on identity, inherent in the concepts of racialization and intersectionality, gets in the way of explanation. The chapter also covers a range of related issues: the different meanings of Black Muslim, the contours of the Muslim question, and the political imagination of the Muslim immigrant rights movement.