Assata: An Autobiography

“The personal is political” is a slogan that was widely used during the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s and popularized by Carol Hanisch through her essay, “The Personal Is Political,” published in 1970. The phrase refers to the notion that experiences that women had in the private domestic sphere had political merit, especially when it came to the fight for pay equity in the workforce and fair distribution of labor. While Assata does not ascribe to second-wave feminist ideology, she acknowledges in her autobiography that her radicalization was built from the efforts of movements that preceded her, which included Black activism from the Civil Rights era.

Assata’s notion of “The personal is political” draws more from her understanding that as a Black revolutionary woman, her personal experiences when it came to racism, sexism, and targeting by the state all had an intimate impact on her wellbeing, but these transgressions also fueled her political sensibilities. While her autobiography explores less of her relationship to the domestic sphere, her discussion of her intimate involvement across different organizing communities becomes a way of articulating her relationship between her personal experiences and the politics behind them.

The autobiographical project is in many ways a demonstration of “The personal is political” for Assata.