Assata Shakur, a onetime member of the Black Liberation Army who was convicted in the killing of a New Jersey state trooper, later escaped prison and spent decades living in exile in Cuba, has died at 78, according to Cuban news site CubaMinRex, with the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs citing "advanced age".

Shakur, born JoAnne Deborah Byron on July 16, 1947, in Queens, N.Y., came of age during the turbulence of the 1960s. After attending college in both New York and New Jersey, she gravitated toward Black nationalist movements, first the Black Panther Party and later the Black Liberation Army, a clandestine organization that advocated armed resistance against systemic racism and state violence.

Her name became widely known in 1973 after a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike left State Trooper Werner Foerster and fellow B.L.A. member Zayd Malik Shakur dead. Assata Shakur, wounded in the incident, was arrested and later convicted of murder in Foerster’s death. She maintained her innocence throughout the proceedings, and her supporters argued that racism and prosecutorial misconduct tainted the trial.

In 1979, she escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey with the assistance of armed allies. Several years later, she surfaced in Cuba, where she was granted political asylum by Fidel Castro’s government. She lived there under the name Assata Shakur for the rest of her life, largely shielded from U.S. extradition efforts.

To American law enforcement officials, she remained one of the country’s most notorious fugitives. In 2013, she became the first woman to be placed on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, with a $2 million reward offered for information leading to her capture. To many activists, however, she came to symbolize resistance to racial injustice and government repression.

In Cuba, Shakur lived mostly out of the public eye but occasionally granted interviews and published writings. Her autobiography, released in 1987, offered a personal account of her upbringing, political awakening, imprisonment, and escape. The book became a touchstone for subsequent generations of activists, and her influence endured across movements for racial justice, including within the hip-hop community and the Black Lives Matter era.

Shakur is survived by her daughter, Kakuya Shakur, and extended family.