Editing Assata Shakur (section)

==Early life and education==
Assata Shakur was born JoAnne Deborah Byron, in [[Flushing, Queens]] on July 16, 1947.<ref name="fbibirth">{{cite web|author=Mueller, Robert S. III |url=https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/fugitives/dt/chesimard_jd.htm |website=Federal Bureau of Investigation |title=Wanted by the FBI – Fugitive – Joanne Deborah Chesimard |access-date=June 6, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611130142/http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/fugitives/dt/chesimard_jd.htm |archive-date=June 11, 2008 |author-link=Robert Mueller }} According to the FBI, Shakur has also used August 19, 1952, as a birthdate.</ref> She lived for three years with her mother, schoolteacher Doris E. Johnson, and retired grandparents, Lula and Frank Hill.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Castellucci|first1=John|title=The Big Dance: the untold story of Kathy Boudin and the terrorist family that committed the Brink's robbery murders|date=1986|publisher=Dodd, Mead|isbn=9780396087137|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dEvZAAAAIAAJ|language=en}}</ref> 

In 1950, Shakur's parents divorced, and she moved with her grandparents to [[Wilmington, North Carolina]]. After elementary school, Shakur moved back to Queens to live with her mother and stepfather (her mother had remarried); she attended Parsons Junior High School. Shakur still frequently visited her grandparents in the south. Her family struggled financially and argued frequently; Shakur spent little time at home.<ref>''Eyes of the Rainbow''. Dir. Gloria Roland. Perf. Assata Shakur. 1997. May 4, 2013. Accessed May 15, 2017.
</ref> 

She often ran away, staying with strangers and working for short periods of time, until she was taken in by her mother's sister, Evelyn A. Williams, a [[civil rights]] worker who lived in Manhattan.<ref name="scheffler203">Scheffler, 2002, p. 203.</ref> Shakur has said that her aunt was the heroine of her childhood, as she was constantly introducing her to new things. She said that her aunt was "very sophisticated and knew all kinds of things. She was right up my alley because i {{sic}} was forever asking all kinds of questions. I wanted to know everything." Williams often took the girl to museums, theaters, and art galleries.<ref name="africana">{{cite book |author=Gates |first1=Henry Louis |author-link1=Henry Louis Gates Jr. |url=https://archive.org/details/africanaencyclop00appi/page/1697 |title=Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience |last2=Appiah |first2=Anthony |author-link2=Anthony Appiah |date=1999 |publisher=Basic Civitas Books |isbn=0-465-00071-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/africanaencyclop00appi/page/1697 1697–1698]}}</ref>

Shakur converted to Catholicism as a child and attended the all-girls [[Cathedral High School (New York City)|Cathedral High School]] for six months before transferring to public high school,<ref name="howell" /> which she attended for a while before dropping out. Her aunt helped her to later earn a [[General Educational Development]] (GED) degree.<ref name="africana"/> Often there were few or no other black students in her [[Catholic school|Catholic high school]] class.

Shakur later wrote that teachers seemed surprised when she answered a question in class, as if not expecting black people to be intelligent and engaged. She said she was taught a sugar-coated version of history that ignored the oppression suffered by [[Person of color|people of color]], especially in the United States. In her autobiography, she wrote: "I didn't know what a fool they had made out of me until i grew up and started to read real history."<ref>Shakur, 1987, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=kVVp9RLqlYwC&pg=PA33 33].</ref>

Shakur attended [[Borough of Manhattan Community College]] (BMCC) and then the [[City College of New York]] (CCNY) in the mid-1960s, where she became involved in many political activities, [[Civil rights movements|civil rights protests]], and [[sit-in]]s.<ref>{{cite web |title=Hands Off Assata Shakur: Angela Davis Calls for Radical Activism to Protect Activist Exiled in Cuba |date=March 28, 2016 |url=https://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/28/hands_off_assata_shakur_angela_davis |website=Democracy Now! |access-date=May 16, 2017}}</ref> 

She traces her interest in [[communism]] to a 1964 debate about the [[Vietnam War]] with several African students attending [[Columbia University]]:{{blockquote|i continued saying the first thing that came into my head: that the U.S. was fighting communists because they wanted to take over everything. When someone asked me what communism was, i opened my mouth to answer, then realized i didn't have the faintest idea. My image of a communist came from a cartoon. It was a spy with a black trench coat and a black hat pulled down over his face, slinking around corners.... I felt like a bona fide clown.... I knew i didn't know what the hell communism was, and yet i'd been dead set against it.... I never forgot that day.... Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.<ref>Shakur, 1987, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=kVVp9RLqlYwC&pg=PA152 151–152].</ref>}}

In 1967, she was arrested for the first time — with 100 other BMCC students — on charges of trespassing. The students had chained and locked the entrance to a college building to protest the low numbers of black faculty and the lack of a [[Black studies|Black Studies]] program.<ref>Williams, 1993, p. 7.</ref>