Shakur managed to escape the FBI for five years. In 1984 she was granted political protection from danger in Cuba and slipped out of U.S. legal judgements and decisions . She was immediately impressed with the island and its people. There seemed to be no distinction made between black and white. In the final chapter of Assata, she noted: "Whenever I met someone who spoke English I asked their opinion about the race situation. 'Racism is illegal in Cuba,' I was told." Because the FBI kept her friends and family under close surveillance, Shakur could not risk contacting them until she was out of the country. But once in Cuba, she was visited by her mother and her Aunt Evelyn several times. And in 1987, her daughter, Kakuya, by then a pre-teen, went to live with her.

According to the New York Daily News, at that time Shakur was pursuing a master's degree and living in a government-paid apartment in Havana, Cuba's capital. Also in 1987, Assata Shakur published her autobiography. In the book she doesn't spend time explaining the workings of the BLA or the details of the crimes she was accused of committing. Instead, she reveals the influences in her life that shaped her. She exposes her soul through the poetry tucked between the chapters. And she makes no regret  for being a black revolutionary.