Changjiang Liu
AMST 252
Essay 2
Professor Francille Rusan Wilson
TA: Maytha Alhassen
11/10/2013

When talking about the perspective of Assata Shakur, we always remember her radical style. Assata felt the power of oppression when she was a child. As she narrated in her autobiography, there was a zoo near her grandparents’ home. Everyday she would beg, plead, whine and nag her grandmother to take her to the zoo. However, one day her grandmother told her that they were not allowed to enter the zoo because they were black (Shakur 27). This childhood memory left a deep impression of segregation on Assata. When discussing the origin of Assata’s radicalness, we can conclude that her childhood memory was one important reason.
Shakur saw
In this way, African Americans could live without others’ help. Malcolm X’s perspective was more feasible and realistic compared with the one of Assata. He realized that the most valuable power of black people is economic and social power rather than bloody violence.
Floyd Mckissick, another black nationalist, also believed that African Americans need to get freedom and happiness by themselves. His opinion was similar to Assata, but Mckissick was not as radical as Assata. However, Mckissick would like to admit the dominant position of white people. “(White people) maintain control of the city agencies and the political scene. They determine what opportunities will be available and what will be reserved for whites only – and, occasionally, one or two good Negroes” (Marable & Mullings 436). In his opinion, some African American leaders could have comfortable lives because their obedience to white people, but it didn’t mean that the status of African Americans are improved because most African Americans are suffered from oppression. White people felt that they need revolution in 1776 because they were oppressed, but Africans in 1967 were oppressed in a heavier way (Marable & Mullings 437). In this way, he indicated that revolution is the ultimate way to save African Americans. Through revolution, all the African Americans could acquire rights that they deserved rather than only a small group of black people.
Amiri Baraka is also a