Haley Newlin’s Reviews > Assata: An Autobiography > Status Update

Northern White men refused to enlist in Civil War for fear of losing their jobs to Black men. When the draft was enacted, Whites took the streets and brutally beat and murdered every Black person they could get their hands on

Estimated between 400-1,000 Blacks were killed as a result of the New York Draft Law Riots

“Where there is oppression, there will be resistance.”

“When you don’t know what’s going on it the world, you’re at a definite disadvantage.”

One of the biggest reasons why it’s so important to diversify your reading

“Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.”

“The rich have always used racism to maintain power.”

“It has always intrigued me how the world can be so beautiful and so ugly at the same.”

“Black men internalized the white man’s opinion of Black women.”

Assata says this goes back to plantations and slavery

“I am a black revolutionary and as such I’m a victim of all the wrath, hatred, and slander that America is capable of. Like all other black revolutionaries, America is trying to lynch me.”

Assata remembers learning about George Washington in school. Celebrating him. But as she got older and researched history herself, she realized that when he was fighting for freedom in the Revolutionary War, he was fighting only for White freedom

“We had been completely brainwashed and we didn’t even know. We accepted white value systems and white standards of beauty, and at times, we accepted the white man’s view of ourselves.”