On May 2, 1973, Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard) lay in a hospital bed, while local, state, and federal police attempted to question her about the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that claimed the life of a white state trooper. Long a target of J. Edgar Hoover's campaign to defame, infiltrate and criminalize Black nationalist organizers and their leaders, Shakur was incarcerated for four years prior to her conviction on flimsy evidence in 1977 as an accomplice to murder.
