Attendees will ‘learn how to continue the work of Assata,’ who was on the FBI’s ‘most wanted terrorist’ list
A “black radical” magazine funded largely by the Ford Foundation and New Venture Fund, one of the Democrat Party’s largest dark money groups, is holding a teach-in Monday for Assata Shakur, the Black Liberation Army foot soldier who was convicted of murdering a New Jersey state trooper in 1973.
Hammer & Hope, also known as the Black Radical Project, will hold a teach-in at a Brooklyn bookstore on Monday to “celebrate the life and political legacy” of Shakur, who died last month in Cuba, where she had lived in exile for decades. Attendees will “learn how to continue the work of Assata,” said Monifa Bandele, an event organizer who previously served as chief executive of the #MeToo-era group Time’s Up. Shakur was one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists.
The event will be hosted by Hammer & Hope’s Chenjerai Kumanyika, a New York University media studies professor and an executive with the American Association of University Professors, an affiliate of Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers.
While Hammer & Hope derives some revenue from memberships, most of its funding comes from the Ford Foundation, one of the country’s largest charities, and New Venture Fund, a part of the Arabella Advisors network. Ford Foundation gave $500,000 to Hammer & Hope in March to provide social commentary “through a Black Radical lens with a focus on resistance,” according to Ford’s grants database. And Ford Foundation donated $750,000 to Hammer & Hope in 2022, funding half of the magazine’s startup costs.
Ford Foundation made that contribution through New Venture Fund, the Democratic juggernaut linked to Arabella Advisors.
New Venture Fund, which was recently investigated in Washington, D.C., for violating charity laws to fund Democrats, gave $1.5 million to Hammer & Hope in 2022. That was the entirety of the magazine’s startup budget that year, according to Hammer & Hope’s tax filings.
The Shakur teach-in is one of the few public events to be held so far for the notorious cop killer, who was convicted in 1977 for the murder of New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster. Shakur, who took part in numerous bank robberies and a 1971 hand grenade attack that injured New York City cops, escaped prison in 1979 with help from her fellow radicals. She has since become a darling of the left, which hails her as a political prisoner and victim of the FBI’s COINTEL program. The FBI placed Shakur on its “most wanted terrorist” list after her prison escape.
Democratic Reps. Summer Lee (Pa.), Yvette Clarke (N.Y.), and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) praised Shakur after her death, as did the NAACP, Chicago Teachers Union, and Democratic Socialists of America, the party of Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.). Last week, Trinity Washington University, the alma mater of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), hosted a “full-day” poetry reading and “critical discussion” of Shakur’s life.
Ford Foundation and New Venture Fund did not respond to requests for comment.
Heather Gerken, the dean of Yale Law School, will take over the Ford Foundation on Nov. 1. She comes to Ford after a controversial stint at the Ivy League school, where she was accused of ignoring Jewish students’ complaints about anti-Semitic harassment.
With Gerken at the helm, Yale Law School hired an Iranian national linked to the terrorism front group Samidoun to serve as deputy director of Yale’s Law and Political Economy Project.
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