‘Greatest Escapes With Arturo Castro’ Episode 12: Destination Cuba

Mental Floss is partnering with FilmNation and iHeartPodcasts to bring you the transcripts for Greatest Escapes, a podcast hosted by Arturo Castro about some of the wildest escape stories across history. In this episode, Diallo Riddle (Sherman’s Showcase, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon) travels with Arturo to the 1970s, where they unveil an escape of historic proportions by the American revolutionary Assata Shakur. Read all the transcripts here.

Arturo: Hey guys, welcome to Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you the wildest true escape stories. Now, in this episode, we’re headed back to the 1970s for the daring daylight jailbreak of a true American revolutionary.

I’m Arturo Castro, and for this journey I’m joined by the incredible talent—actor, writer, producer and DJ—Diallo Riddle!

Diallo Riddle! [airhorn noises] Am I saying your name completely right or completely wrong?

Diallo: You—you said it completely right. Diallo Riddle. You know, people sometimes mistake Diallo for Diablo.

Arturo: Diablo? [laughs]

Diallo: My mother-in-law said that my to-be wife could not date me, uh–

Arturo: Because your name is—my mom did warn me about—she’s like “you were having the Diablo on? Like, I have questions.”

Diallo: “Diablo was surprisingly available. You know, you’d think he’d be kind of booked up.”

Arturo: You know, you’d think he’d be like—but right now the world’s kind of f***ed. So like, he’s–

Diallo: He seems really busy. He seems really busy.

Arturo: Um, may I ask the origin of your name?

Diallo: So my name is Diallo, uh, no b, uh, two ls, actually. Uh, it’s from West Africa, Diallo Amir Riddle. Um, it stands for “Bold Prince Riddle” in a West African language known as Fulani.

Arturo: Fulani. Awesome.

Diallo: Yeah, Fulani. So I’m from Atlanta, Georgia. You know, my parents just wanted to give me a name from Africa because, you know, Black pride and, uh–

Arturo: Sure, sure, sure.

Diallo: But that—that is how you end up with a Bold Prince Riddle, a.k.a. Diallo Amir Riddle.

Arturo: Oh, fantastic. You know, at the beginning of my career, I did a few, um, Nigerian films and they call them “Nollywood.”

Diallo: Of course!

Arturo: So anything from West Africa films, they call it “Nollywood.” And it was amazing ’cause you know, obviously, like, we’d go off to shoot in Lowell, Massachusetts, and they’d be like, “come make we go white boy.” And I’m like, “dude, I’m—I’m not white.” He’s like, “my brother, you look like me. No, you are a white boy.”

Diallo: You know what’s funny is, uh, on one of our shows, Sherman’s Showcase, we—you know, we just shot a proof of concept, which, you know, is a fancy industry term for essentially we shot like, the best five or 10 minutes of a script and showed it to the network, and we got picked up to series. But in that proof–

Arturo: Congratulations.

Diallo: Oh, thank you. In that proof of concept, we had a, um, essentially what was a Nollywood movie trailer. And in that trailer, because we have … we have—we have a couple of Nigerian writers on our staff. And we thought it was so funny that they were like, “if you watch enough of these Nigerian Nollywood movies, a lot of times the twist is that somebody is a witch.” And so–

Arturo: A hundred percent.

Diallo: Every—every trailer ended with, “She is a witch!”

Arturo: Like, yeah, the—it’s usually the preacher who’s also kind of a love interest. Like who—who reveals this story.

1. Diallo’s Escape
2. CHAPTER 1: Breaking Free
3. CHAPTER 2: From Joey to Assata
4. CHAPTER 3: From the Black Panthers to the Black Liberation Army
5. CHAPTER 4: Highway Shootout
6. CHAPTER 5: Battle in the Courtroom
7. CHAPTER 6: Legend
8. CHAPTER 7: Legacy
9. Outro

Diallo’s Escape

Arturo: Tell me about your greatest escape. It doesn’t even have to be life threatening. It just has to be one of those, like, “whoa, I got away with that.”

Diallo: Very few people know this story, but actually when I was about 17, I’m filling out college applications, and so I went to the store cause you couldn’t email ’em in back then. You had to like print ’em out on paper and send ’em in.

Arturo: Right.

Diallo: So I go to the local drug store to pick up some paper. I’m literally buying paper to go to college and—and build a better life. When a guy came in and held up the convenience store.

Arturo: No!

Diallo: And I remember he said “everybody on the floor!” And I remember how, like, I had never seen a handgun wielded, you know, in person before. And I just remember thinking “that is a gigantic gun.” And so we all got down on our stomachs and, I’m like, you know, praying, and like, you know, just thinking like, “oh, if I can just get outta here and mail off my college application, I will never come back to this Ecker Drugs, and–”

So this is a great escape of someone else that actually saved my life, potentially. Cause you know, everybody in the store—there weren’t many of us at the time. I thought like, you know, he might be like, “no witnesses!” you know, and uh–

Arturo: Whoa, what a thought.

Diallo: And—and then somebody ran out the back, like—it was probably an employee—and just something about that emergency door jamming open … like, the guy just grabbed a bunch of money out of the register and then ran back out the front. And then I got up and I picked up my paper and I’m pretty sure I just walked out with my paper. I think I was like, “they’re gonna have a lot of paperwork to fill out and I don’t know that I want to hang out here.”

Arturo: “I’m not here for it.”

Diallo: I’m not trying to be like, you know … “I can’t identify the guy. All I saw was a black glove on a gun. I’m outta here.”

Arturo: Have you ever wanted to get to Cuba? Have you ever been to Cuba, or–

Diallo: I—I did, I really wanted to get to Cuba. I mean, like … oh man, you know, Cuba is such a—obviously it’s such a complicated sociopolitical, you know, topic. But I’ve always wanted, in my heart of hearts, there to be like, a very simple way to just fly outta LAX, you know, into Cuba. And just, you know, go and visit and— and go around and … and see the country. So it’s one of those places I’ve really wanted to go. I feel like every time I get a chance to go–

Arturo: Something comes up.

Diallo: Something comes up. Yeah.

Arturo: Now, Cuba is important in today’s story for two reasons. First, the revolution in 1959 that inspired a ton of people in the next couple of decades.

And second: Cuba doesn’t extradite people to the United States. Bam.

Which takes us back to the end of the 1970s … and one of the most significant prison escapes in American history.

CHAPTER 1: Breaking Free

Arturo: It was November 2, 1979. Three men walked into the correctional facility for women in Clinton, New Jersey, sometime between 1 and 4 p.m. Each of the visitors showed their ID, and they gave their names and addresses, and were entered into the prison visitor log. But none of the information they gave was true.

So, this wasn’t just any old visit. These men were complete revolutionaries. And they arrived to pull one of the most daring jailbreaks of the century—in complete daylight.

Afterwards, the only true thing the guards knew about them is that they looked ’70s as hell: I’m talking afros, full beards, sideburns. A guy with a bass behind them going “doot doot doot doot doot.” OK that last part isn’t true, but wouldn’t that be awesome?

So if you were gonna help with a jailbreak, how would you disguise yourself? Like, what would you be wearing for this?

Diallo: Oh, man. Um … probably all black, right? You gotta go like, full, you know, Black Panthers slash … uh, you know, Tom Cruise when he is like grappling in from the ceiling.

Arturo: That’s—that’s what it is. I would wear … I would like, wear like, really thick eyebrows because that’s the one thing that people would describe me as. They’re like … and then I just rip ‘em off. And you have these ones–

Diallo: “It couldn’t have been him. Look at how thin those eyebrows are!”

Arturo: The first man arrived alone. He was checked through the registration building in the minimum security area of the prison. Then he climbed into a van that drove him across the prison grounds to the South Hall. Now, this was the prison’s maximum security area. But—and this is key, OK?—he was not searched. He wasn’t! No! Instead, he was led through the extra fencing around the South Hall. Then the guards let him down to the glass booth where he sat down to visit with an inmate.

Diallo: Now you got—I gotta put ’70s, 1970s security teams, like, I just feel like they–

Arturo: Yeah, I mean, they were just like, “yeah, I don’t care, you can go through. Who are you here to see? Yeah, sure, go ahead, man.”

Diallo: It’s like—it reminds me of that Simpson episode where like, Mr. Burns has to go through, like, eight levels of security to get down to the nuclear reactor, but then a cat wanders in through a broken—a broken screen door.

Arturo: Yeah, a hundred percent.

So the next two men arrived soon after and they did the same thing. They passed the registration without being searched. OK! And were shuttled into the prison van in the South Hall. Literally nobody gave a f***.

Diallo: Yeah. I mean, it’s the ’70s. Everybody was packing and nobody was checking.

Arturo: When they came to the fence around the South Hall and it was open for them, they sprang into their escape plan. They pulled out guns on the van driver while the gate hung open. Now, inside the visiting booth, the first man turned to the prison guard who was watching the visit, and he whipped out two pistols out from under his jacket.

Diallo: Not one in like, you know, shoved into his crotch or whatever. Like, literally two guns. John Woo style.

Arturo: Something must have given away when he had, like, a bullet belt around him. So holding the guard there at gunpoint, he forced her to open the booth. Out from behind the glass walked activist, Black Panther, and soldier of the Black Liberation Army Assata–

Diallo: Shakur.

Arturo: That’s right. Yep.

Diallo: Assata Shakur.

Arturo: Suddenly free from her cell, Assata and her visitor took the guard hostage, and they marched outside. They climbed into the van with the other two men. Now, together, the four revolutionaries and their two hostages were able to drive the prison van right out of the main prison gate. They reached a nearby parking lot where their getaway cars were parked, waiting.

Diallo: Hmm.

Arturo: So Assata and her rescuers leapt from the van and into the cars and just f***ing peeled away. The prison guards were left handcuffed in the prison van, but unharmed. Now, everybody started flipping the f*** out. Roadblocks were rushed out onto the highway to stop the escaping vehicles. But conflicting reports flew in, right?

Some said “they were in a blue Pontiac and a blue Cadillac.” And “no, no, no. They were in a Ford Maverick and a two-tone Lincoln.” “No, no, no. They had massive eyebrows. Everybody had massive eyebrows.” “No.” Confusing all the way.

So the contradictory reports may have been the saving grace of the escapees. Before officials could decide which roads could be shut down and where to hunt, Assata and her allies were out of there. Assata Shakur was free.

Diallo: It’s insane.

Arturo: Diallo, uh, what do you know about Assata Shakur’s life and why she was in prison?

Diallo: I mean, admittedly, you know, my father was a painter, uh, in South Central now called South LA during the time of the Watts riots. And so, you know, he used to, you know, do paintings and sculptures about, you know, the ghettos and the—and the hood back then. You know, and I always felt like even though he wasn’t like a Black Panther, growing up in our household, we definitely understood the point of view that like, our community needed, you know, uplift, and it needed, you know, certain things to reach its full potential.

Arturo: Right.

Diallo: Um, so the idea of like, Assata Shakur and Mumia Abu Jamal, like—these were not random names to us. Like, these were people who we knew in our household. And—and honestly, when Tupac Shakur first blew up, I was like, “is that Assata’s son?” And of course, you know, Assata Shakur was the godmother of Tupac.

Arturo: That’s right. That’s right.

Diallo: And yeah. And then I think his mom, Afeni Shakur was a—was a good friend of Assata’s.

Arturo: That’s right. And … and—you know, this is a little off topic, but let me ask you something, because you bring up something interesting about, uh—I didn’t know that about your father. Do you think that you got from him the desire to express yourself, and surroundings, and sort of your point of view through art? Albeit through a writer, acting perspective, but–

Diallo: No, listen, you— you asked something that not many people have ever asked, but uh, it’s got a very, very, uh, clear and strong answer, which is that absolutely, 100 percent. You know, my father started off at LA City College, doing still lifes, like he would paint pears, you know, in bowls and, you know, light coming through a window on a via.

But, you know, at the end of the day, once the Watts riots broke out, he was like, “I can’t do pears and bowls and still life anymore. I have to do art that means something.” And he sort of instilled, you know, in us, even before I knew that I wanted to be an artist in my own way, even though before I knew I wanted to be creative with my profession, he always said that he felt like art without any social commentary had no interest to him. You know, he felt like everything that he did had to have some ... not message. He wasn’t trying to be, um, polemic, but it was just that he had–

Arturo: A point of view.

Diallo: Yeah, it had to have a point of view. It had to have a very strong point of view. And I think that in my work to this day, everything from Sherman’s Showcase to South Side to some of the shows that we’re working on now, I always think, “what will this contribute to the world?”

It doesn’t have to be anything like, “oh, it’s going to get people to wake up about climate change.” It’s not like that. It’s just more like: how will this make life—you know, people’s lives better. Even if it’s just to say, “it’s gonna be so funny that it’s gonna give people who have had a hard week, it’s gonna bring them a little bit of joy.” That is enough. But there has to be something in there like that for me to be interested.

Arturo: What a fascinating thing to be able to witness that if you see your dad’s paintings from before the riots and after the riots and, you know, how you describe them–

Diallo: It’s night and day. It’s so night and day.

Arturo: –and the still life. And then suddenly, like, so, we’re just watching—I love the moment where you watch an artist find—find their voice, you know–

Diallo: Find their voice.

Arturo: –and visually being able to witness it must be really fascinating and impactful as a young man.

Diallo: Yeah. John Thomas Riddle, he’s, uh, you know, his artwork is up at the California African American Art Museum and–

Arturo: Awesome man.

Diallo: –and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. So it’s—you know, he had a great career. Sadly, as many people who work in that field know, the second that he died, uh, his art skyrocketed in value. ’Cause there’s—there’s not gonna be anymore. That’s … that’s the weird thing about that.

Arturo: We’ll put up a link at the bottom of this episode so people can check out your dad’s art, Man. I think that’d be really cool.

CHAPTER 2: From Joey to Assata

Arturo: OK, so we’ve heard about Assata’s legendary prison escape, but now we’re gonna jump back and hear the story of the real person behind the legend. So, Diallo, you know a lot of this already, but for the listener, we’re gonna go way, way back, OK? So Assata was born in Queens probably in the year 1947, though the exact date is kind of lost.

Diallo: Oh, wow.

Arturo: Yeah. She was born with the name Joanne and her family called her Joey. It was only later that she would leave it behind and become Assata. She grew up with her mother and her aunt, and when she was 3, her grandparents bought a beach property in Wilmington, North Carolina. So they moved south and they took Assata with them.

Now—and this is a really beautiful sort of memory, I think—Assata says that while in Wilmington, the women in her grandmother’s generation became her role models. They would swim rivers, and shoot the head off a snake, and plant a garden, sew a pattern, kill a hog, and also quiet a little, fussing baby all at the same time.

Do you have older women in your life that you consider bad asses like that?

Diallo: Oh yeah. I mean, what’s interesting is I have an Aunt Joanne, uh–

Arturo: Hell yeah you do.

Diallo: No relation to Assata, uh—oh shoot. Now it comes out—Diallo’s related to Assata Shakur!

Arturo: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, “that’s what we got.” The FBI, they come storming my booth. I’m like, “I don’t—what do you want with me?”

Diallo: They’re so—I mean, like every—I feel like all the women in my family are badass in their own way. But, but you know what’s really interesting about what you say about them moving from New York, uh, I think you said Queens to North Carolina. I grew up in Atlanta, and the thing about Atlanta is I think we have more trees, you know, per square inch than any major city in the country.

Like we have—so, we have these woods and we have these really wild areas that are right in the heart of Atlanta. And as a result, you know, me and my friends, right there in the city limits, we learned how to fish and identify which snakes are harmless and which ones will kill you. And there’s like, this—this strain of wild. And I think that that’s really cool because unfortunately every time I see, you know, Black people depicted on TV in any kind of like, rural or like, river-strewn area, it’s almost always like something about slavery. Like, it’s just like, they’re always like, running away from dogs trying to like take ’em back into bondage.

And I’m like, “guys, there are a lot of rural Black people who like, know how to like, fish and—and do the wildlife, you know, outdoors thing.” You know? I love to hear stories like that.

Arturo: Depicting Black joy in the outdoors is something we don’t see much of.

Diallo: Yeah, man.

Arturo: I totally hear you. Dude–

Diallo: I’m like, all alone in the archery club. Like, come join me, please.

Arturo: Dude. Every time I see a Latino person in the desert, I’m like, “oh, f***. OK I know where this is going.” Like, couldn’t I have been just been out for a f***ing hike?

Diallo: Yes!

Arturo:  Like, I love hiking! Like, every time anybody like catches me outside, like—like in, I don’t know, Palm Springs or something, they’re like, “oh, I know where ya came from.” No you f***ing don’t. I came from the Ace Hotel motherf***er. And I just went for a nice little stroll. F*** you!

Diallo: “I was just on a dune buggy. OK. Forget y’all.”

Arturo: “That’s right. OK. That’s why I’m all f***ing dirty and thirsty. OK motherf***er. Cause I’m hungover.”

So to paint a picture of like, what Wilmington was like at the time, uh, public beaches around Wilmington were whites only. So Assata’s grandparents moved onto their ocean front property and opened it for business, right? So they welcomed Black visitors, sold refreshments, and rented umbrellas.

Diallo: Smart.

Arturo: Yeah. So her time on the beach growing up became Assata’s picture of what freedom really means, right? Watching people enjoy themselves, sharing treats with them, dancing in the sand. Kind of what we were talking about, uh— about minority joy, that you hardly ever see.

After elementary school, Assata moved back to New York. And after moving around so much as a kid, she was convinced there wasn’t a place in the United States where she could actually escape discrimination. It was everywhere. Both in the north and in the south. In her teens, Assata ended up living with her Aunt Evelyn, a lawyer who would eventually become a law professor at NYU.

Diallo: Oh, OK.

Arturo: Now under—yeah—so under Evelyn’s care, Assata made it through high school and into college at the City College of New York. Do you ever go to City College or visited that area at all?

Diallo: In New York?

Arturo: Yeah.

Diallo: I don’t think so. My—my time in New York was a little bit limited. The only time I lived there was when I was a writer for Jimmy Fallon, and that was about four years. And honestly, I went straight from my, you know, place in Upper West Side, straight to, uh, 30 Rock. So I–

Arturo: Right.

Diallo: –I never really got to know some parts of the city, like City College.

Arturo: That’s where I’ve gotten my first play. And like, I had a mentor who—who taught film classes there, so I’d come out, audit his class. So it still had those feelings of whenever you walk into a place that—that has been really important to a city, you still feel sort of the ghost of the past there.

Diallo: Mm-hmm.

Arturo: And—and that’s what City College felt like to me. This place of learning that most people don’t ever talk about.

Diallo: That—that’s one of the best things about New York is that you feel like the past is all around you. I will say that I think the ghosts of the past were very much alive in the basement of my New York building. Like, I never wanted to go to that laundry room.

Arturo: Oh, it’s fully haunted. All of New York City.

Diallo: Very, very haunted.

Arturo: In 1967, Assata joined other students at City College to protest the lack of Black professors and Black history being taught. Their entire group was arrested. And the violence of these arrests made one thing clear: Assata knew it would take a revolution for America to change.

She made more friends in other radical groups, and took a trip to California, which is the original home of the Black Panthers. The Panthers there challenged her to get off the sidelines and get involved. So she went home to New York and she stepped it up.

Was the Black Panther party something you were aware of growing up?

Diallo: Yeah, I mean, again, my father was, you know, very much of that sort of generation and I mean, like, we—to grow up in my household was to know Fred Hampton, Huey P. Newton … you know, my father, just to this day, I have a painting of his, it’s called, Fairbanks or Garvey, and it’s—it’s got a prominent picture of Marcus Garvey, you know, in the painting.

Like he … he definitely instilled upon us that we should take great pride in our people, our accomplishments. You know, one thing that he said to me back when I was young that didn’t really register until I had my own kids was just this idea—and this applies to you and everybody who’s listening—is that there have been so many wars and conflicts and genocides and plagues. Everybody alive today is a bloodline that survived all that from the beginning of freaking time. I think that’s so amazing, that all of us have an ancestor who was able to jump over a rhino, you know, survive a flood. You know what I mean?

Arturo: Very specifically a rhino, yes.

Diallo: Yeah, man. I mean, like, you know … just the idea that all of us have managed to survive all of human history and get to the point where we’re now talking into, you know, machines and broadcasting over–

Arturo: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Diallo: –invisible waves is kind of amazing. But I think that, yeah, my father’s lesson would’ve been just that, you know, take pride in what human stock you come from and try to instill that same pride in your children.

Arturo: That’s beautiful, man.

CHAPTER 3: From the Black Panthers to the Black Liberation Army

Arturo: In 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland. By 1969, the Panthers had branches all across the country. They built networks of mutual aid, they ran medical clinics, they held education programs, and served breakfast for kids in poverty.

Diallo: Yeah. I mean that was sort of the main appeal, I think, you know—anytime you hear people talk about the Panthers nowadays, you always hear about that, you know—shout out to my friends, the Lucas Brothers. I thought they did an amazing job on the script for Judas and the Black Messiah.

Arturo: I didn’t see it. I haven’t seen it!

Diallo: If you watch that movie, I guarantee—first off, I think that, you know—I know that Daniel [Kaluuya] got nominated for a lot of stuff in that movie, but to me, Lakeith Stanfield is—he’s such a Robert De Niro at a young age. Like, I just feel like Lakeith—he disappears into this character. He plays every level. If—even if you just like a good movie, I would actually recommend Judas and the Black Messiah. But I’d also point out that that movie points out that the Panthers weren’t—it wasn’t an organization that was started, like, “yeah, we’re gonna get a bunch of guns and kill people.” That’s not what it was really about. And I think that, you know–

Arturo: OK, great.

Diallo: –it represents that side of the story that you don’t get told unless you, you know, do research.

Arturo: It was 1970 when Assata joined the Panthers in New York. By that point, there were Panther offices in 68 cities. Wow. Assata’s first role with the Panthers was running the Children’s Breakfast program in Harlem. She became the head of the Harlem office responsible for the free clinics and the community outreach.

OK, so Shakur is an Arabic name for “thankful.” Many Panthers in New York took the name to represent their unity, and Assata was among them. When Panther leader Fred Hampton was murdered by the Chicago police, many party members were convinced mutual aid wasn’t enough—you know, they had to fight back, literally. So some of the New York Panthers started to go underground, living under assumed names and keeping low profile. Assata was one of ’em.

She disappeared from her family and friends. She knew that her aunt, her mom, and her grandparents were all being watched by the police.

So Assata’s name started to hit the headlines in the early 1970s. So the police wanted her for bank robberies, bombings, and the murder of police officers. She seems to have been in so many places at the same time, you know? How could she have hit banks in the Bronx, in Brooklyn, and in New Orleans, so close together? Apparently, the police didn’t really care so much about the timelines because they didn’t add up.

Diallo: I had forgotten about the bank robberies. It’s so interesting to me because as a storyteller and somebody who loves movies and—and books and stuff, especially about true crime, you know, you sort of see a lionization of people like Billy the Kid and Ma Barker and Bonnie and Clyde. Like, you sort of see them as sort of held up as like, these were outlaws you can root for, but you never really hear that about Assata–

Arturo: Right. Black and brown people.

Diallo: –Shakur, and she’s robbing banks too, apparently. So, you know, it just depends on sometimes like how people feel about a person.

Arturo: One hundred and fifty percent.

CHAPTER 4: Highway Shootout

Arturo: So in May 1973, after she had lived for two years underground, Assata was captured.

She was riding in the front seat of a white Pontiac with two other activists, Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli. They were traveling the New Jersey Turnpike when they saw police lights behind them—the police report says that it had a broken taillight.

So there are two versions of what happened next: The first one says that when the state police officer told the driver to get outta the car, Assata started shooting from the passenger seat. A firefight ensued, and in the storm of bullets, two police officers were shot and one was killed alongside Zayd Shakur. After shooting two police officers, Assata was hit in the chest and shoulder. And that was what the police said happened.

But Assata remembers it very differently. She says that when the police stopped them, her hands were up. And as the shooting started around them, she was hit by a bullet before she could even leave the seat in the car. She says she never even had a gun, let alone fired one.

Acoli was able to jump back in the car and race another five miles down the turnpike chased by three police cars. Now, when the road was closed and Acoli was finally forced to pull over, he jumped outta the car and raced into the woods.

Assata stepped out and slowly approached the police, covered in blood. She was arrested and rushed to the hospital, and her years of imprisonment began.

So, she was held under armed guard for 24 hours a day. And in her later writings, Assata would describe the ways that she was tortured by the New Jersey State Police while cuffed to a hospital bed. All the while she was fighting to recover from her own bullet wounds, and she never f***ing cracked.

Diallo: Hmm. Yeah.

Arturo: Dude. I would f***ing … like, interrogation and me, would break, bro. Like, I don’t—I wouldn’t survive. My aunt looks at me funny and I’m like—I’ll confess to sh*t I haven’t even done.

Diallo: Let me tell you—first off, well that’s … that’s—that’s actually the case to be made against torture. Right? They always say—experts on torture say torture doesn’t actually work because at some point people just want the torture to end. So you can say like, “you are Mickey Mouse,” and people be like, “aha, it’s me.” You know, like…

Arturo: “Hello boys and girls,” you know?

Diallo: “Caught me red-handed or white gloved. Either way.”

Arturo: “Woo hoo!” Yeah. they’re like, “man, he’s lost his mind. But I love it.”

Diallo: I mean, I always tell people—I’m like, “don’t tell me anything cause I—I will probably snitch.” Like, you know, like, I’ll just … I like to keep my nose clean, so to speak, because like, you know—I don’t wanna know. I don’t wanna know. And I feel like I give off that energy.

Arturo: So when she was finally strong enough to be moved, Assata left the hospital to the Middlesex County workhouse, where she was the only female prisoner at the jail.

It was the first of many men’s prisons where she would be held while the charges against her went forward. They were extremely f***ing scared of her. It’s just so wild that they had to keep her in a men’s prison. Now, her Aunt Evelyn left her job at NYU and took on Assata’s legal case full time. Now that July 4, Evelyn brought a tape recorder with her and recorded Assata’s most famous statement, which came to be known as “To My People.” She introduced herself to the world as Assata Shakur: Black Revolutionary.

She said “There is and always will be, until every Black man, woman, and child is free, a Black liberation army.” And it was closed with a line from the Communist Manifesto: “We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Diallo: Mmm.

Arturo: Evelyn spread the recording and it played on Black radio stations all around New York. Magazines reprinted it. And white media figures, of course, whined and whined about it. Reporters were actually banned from meeting with Assata. Her voice was so powerful—imagine that—that the judges and the cops and the prison guards were just scrambling to keep up with her even though she was locked up.

Diallo: Wow.

CHAPTER 5: Battle in the Courtroom

Arturo: In 1974, Assata finally went to trial. But guess what? She kept beating the charges. First, she was acquitted of some robbery charges. A month later, she was tried for killing a police officer, but there wasn’t evidence against her and that case was dismissed.

In January 1976, Assata faced a kidnapping charge, and she beat that too! When she was finally tried for the Queens bank, the first case that had actually put her in the paper, Assata was easily acquitted. Like, what?

Diallo: Damn.

Arturo: The photograph published by the police didn’t look like her at all. The bank manager who had been there for the robbery testified–

Diallo: Wait, wait. I’m sorry. They—they did, they did a, a drawing and it didn’t look like her?

Arturo: Well, the photograph that they put out of who had actually robbed the bank—you know, so it’s sort of the photo evidence of who robbed the bank—didn’t look like her at all once they got to trial.

Diallo: Didn’t look like her at all. That’s hilarious.

Arturo: Yeah. It was really flimsy charges. And the bank manager who had been there for the robbery testified that Assata was not the woman who had held them at gunpoint.

Diallo: There ya go.

Arturo: He’s like, “no, it was a redhead woman, and she was like, ‘I’m Wendy,’ uh, like I don’t—I pointed out to her.”

Diallo: It’s like how these like, uh, these facial recognition features on some of the—on some of the robots nowadays, like they … they have a harder time recognizing Black people because the people who program them just didn’t use a lot of Black subjects. So like, they’re just like–

Arturo: No.

Diallo: –like, they look at me and they’re like, “Uh huh, that’s Martin Luther King.” It’s like, “no, no, man–”

Arturo: No. That’s so f***ed up.

Diallo: “–I don’t really look like King.” Um, anyway, go ahead.

Arturo: So in 1977, the victories for Assata finally came to an end, right? She was found guilty of first degree murder, along with many other charges for the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike. Now, halfway through the trial, Assata’s new lawyer, Stanley Cohen, was found dead in his f***ing apartment.

Diallo: Is that—I didn’t even know. Now see, now I’m learning. I did not know that.

Arturo: So he had been collecting evidence against the police witnesses, recruiting forensic chemists to show that there was no evidence of gunfire on Assata’s hands and uncovering what he believed were falsified documents in the prosecution’s case. So f***ed up. And the newspapers reported that Stanley died of natural causes.

So … we’re not saying that the police killed her lawyer, are we? Like, cause that’d be crazy.

Diallo: You know there were a lot of suspicious deaths back in those days, and I do think that … you know, we have, forensics have come a long way. Right–

Arturo: A hundred percent.

Diallo: –since 1970, whatever this was. I mean, like—but it is suspicious that he died of unknown causes. I don’t even watch Unsolved Mysteries, you know?

Arturo: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Diallo: I like my mysteries solved. Yeah, exactly. Like, the worst thing about Unsolved Mysteries is that like—when they come to the end, they’re like, “did they die? Or did they just disappear?” And then they start rolling the credits, you’re like, “that’s not satisfying.”

Arturo: OK, but that’s Unsolved Mysteries, which at least like come with a built-in, like, “oh, I played myself.” I f***ing hate these documentaries that are five f***ing 90 minute episodes long. And then at the end it’s like, “we don’t know if it faked his own death or he didn’t.”

Diallo: Tell me that at the beginning, man!

CHAPTER 6: Legend

Arturo: Now, once she was convicted, Assata was moved to Yardville prison in New Jersey. Her young daughter went to live with her [Assata’s] mother in New York and Assata and the other members of the underground knew that they couldn’t rely on justice from the courts. Instead, they planned her prison break.

So let’s do a cool little recap of the prison break. As I understand it, three people went in, they never got searched. One went particularly to visit Assata, pulled out two massive pistols. He had a Mexican bandido, uh—gun belt as well. That part I added myself. There was ’70s music playing. Everybody had sideburns. They had afros. They jumped into the van. They like sped off, and they got away with it. So far so good. Great. I really hope Ben Chugg adds really cool ’70s music to, to the background of all that.

After Assata was busted out, the feds put her back on their Most Wanted list. And just like the years before, they started linking her to a series of crimes, right? Saying they spotted her at the scenes of shootings and burglaries and other stuff like that.

After a few years passed, the FBI started getting reports that Assata had made it to Cuba: the home of the revolution that inspired the Black Panthers in the beginning.

When Assata published a biography in 1987, she described her life of imprisonment and exile. But she actually sounded happy to be in Cuba. She called it “a country of hope.” And she ended her book with a series of poetic meditations on life there, about the openness and beauty of Havana and Cuban culture. And there, beyond the reach of the U.S. government, Assata was finally able to pick up a telephone, call home, and talk with her family for the first time in five years.

Diallo: Wow.

CHAPTER 7: Legacy

Arturo:  In 2022, Assata celebrated her 75th birthday in Cuba.  

The U.S. government is still working today to extradite her from Cuba and imprison her again. So Assata continues to say that she also has a duty: as long as she lives, she is going to carry on the Black liberation struggle.

And despite everything, to continue to be human, to be giving and to be loving.

Outro

Arturo: What do you take away from stories of Panthers like Assata?

Diallo: I think police organizations have to realize that there were some abuses that led to a lack of trust in these communities, and that there’s a lot of healing that has to take place. It’s not as simple as like, “oh, this person, did this thing.” Which by the way, as you’ve pointed out in this podcast, it’s not cut and dry, you know?

Arturo: No. In order for the healing to begin, like it—the past needs to be acknowledged.

Diallo: No, it’s true. There’s—there’s too much of that. Like, “OK guys, this is the ancient past. Can we just please move on?” There’s—there’s too much of that. And I think if you don’t acknowledge the past and you—it’s hard to move into the future.

Arturo: A hundred and fifty percent.

Diallo: You know what I mean? I think that’s why it’s so disturbing that there’s so many places that are trying to whitewash history right now, and they do it under the rubric of this, you know, basically law school-centric concept of critical race theory. And then they pretend that, “oh, if we teach people that America wasn’t perfect, then that’s critical race theory.” Like, no, you don’t even know what—you don’t even know what critical race theory is, if that’s what you think.

Arturo: You can love something and want to improve something and still acknowledge its flaws.

Diallo: You can love your father, but also be like, “Hey dad, stop drinking. Stop drinking.”

Arturo: “Hey dad, stop drinking.”

Hey man, I am so honored to have had you here. Before we go, do you have anything that you wanna—that you want our listeners to look out for of yours coming up?

Diallo: Man, there’s so much coming up—from the music and the comedy of Sherman Showcase to what I think is one of just the funniest, you know, get to know the characters type show: South Side on HBO Max. I think the easiest way for people to—to check out some of the work that I and Bashir have done, follow me on Instagram at Diallo—not Diablo—at Diallo. That’s a different—that’s a different account.

Arturo: The Diablo account gets all these followers now. They’re like, “I don’t know, man. This, I don’t, this guy doesn’t look like a DJ. He’s–”

Diallo: “I gotta say. He is pretty entertaining.” Um, at Diallo, d-i-a-l-l-o. And you’ll always know about like, sort of what we’re digging and what we’re producing and, uh—and yeah man. Thanks. Thanks for having me on here.

Arturo: What in honor to have you, and thank you for being so open about your dad and his art. It means a lot to us when, when guests come on here and, and, and share moments to shape them. So thank you so much. You’re a friend of the show. You can come back anytime, brother.

Diallo: Thank you so much, bro.

Arturo: Bye!

Credits

Arturo: Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and FilmNation Entertainment, in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me, Arturo Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka from FilmNation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Whitney Donaldson from Gilded Audio, and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio.

The show is produced and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chugg, who are also, respectively, our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is Tory Smith, who is our other overlord.

Nick Dooley is our technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Ryzack, Sara Joyner, Nicki Stein, Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright.

Hey, thank you so much for listening, and if you’re enjoying the show, please leave a rating or review. My mom will call you each personally and thank you, and we’ll see you all next week.