Far-left “Squad” member Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., honored a radical Black activist and convicted murderer during a special project at a New York City middle school while serving as its principal before being elected to Congress, according to a YouTube video reviewed by Fox News Digital.
A 2014 video centered on Cornerstone Academy for Social Action Middle School’s (CASA) then-“Wall of Action” project shows Bowman praising various historical Black and Latino figures being honored on the wall, including Assata Shakur, who was convicted in the 1973 killing of a New Jersey state trooper. Bowman referred to the people on the wall as “tremendous, tremendous figures.”
Shakur, whose real name is JoAnne Chesimard, was a member of the Black nationalist group Black Liberation Army and was serving a life sentence for the fatal shooting of the officer before escaping from prison in 1979 with the help of Mutulu Shakur, another radical Black activist praised by Bowman in the video. She fled to Cuba, where she remains a wanted domestic terrorist today.
Radical Black liberation activist and convicted murderer Assata Shakur and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y. (Getty Images)
“Each and every member of the Wall of Honor has played a major role in moving our society from a bigoted, oppressive existence toward a world of freedom, justice and equality,” Bowman, who was the founder of the school and served as its principal until 2019, said in the video, which was first reported on by the Huffington Post, before naming various other less-controversial figures alongside both Shakurs, like former President Barack Obama and Booker T. Washington.
Mutulu Shakur was later convicted of armed robbery and of aiding Assata Shakur in her escape from prison. He died last year after being released from prison around eight months earlier due to his worsening health.
In addition to the Shakurs, who are not related, the wall included former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., a known antisemite and promoter of conspiracy theories, such as that Jews were responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks.
JoAnn Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, holding the manuscript of her autobiography with Old Havana, Cuba, in the background on October 7, 1987. (Ozier Muhammad/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
The video also included footage of hip hop artist Chuck D of Public Enemy, whom Bowman referred to as a “legendary hip hop artist and one of the pillars of the hip hop movement and hip hop culture,” visiting CASA. Chuck D has a long history of praising notorious antisemite Louis Farrakhan on his X (formerly known as Twitter) account. In 2020, he referred to a conservative pointing out his Farrakhan ties as “roaches.”
In another video from 2013 also mentioned in HuffPost’s report, Bowman is seen discussing a career-development event being held at the school, but he has Assata’s 1988 book, “Assata: An Autobiography,” visibly placed on the table in front of him.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Bowman’s office for comment.
According to HuffPost, a spokesperson for Bowman told the outlet, “It is correct that many leaders in the Black liberation movement, from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X to the names listed in this story, have complicated biographies.”
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“It is completely baseless, and a rhetorical tool of the far-right, to insinuate educating students on major figures of Black American history is serving to promote hateful or divisive rhetoric or actions,” they added.
Fox News’ Stephen Sorace and Andrew Murray contributed to this report.
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