On November 2, 1979, a BLA unit walked Assata Shakur out of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey in a bloodless armed escape organized with May 19th's logistical support — Marilyn Buck and Silvia Baraldini were later convicted for their roles, and Sekou Odinga for commanding the operation. Shakur, convicted in 1977 for the death of a state trooper in a case her defenders regard as the era's paradigmatic frame-up, surfaced in Cuba in 1984, where she received political asylum.
The escape, claimed as the "liberation of a prisoner of war," was May 19th's founding achievement in its own eyes and the government's central exhibit against it — charged again and again through the RICO and conspiracy prosecutions of the following decade, while Shakur herself became the first woman ever placed on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list, with a $2 million bounty that still stands.