I tracked down Tupac’s godmother Assata Shakur, the FBI’s most wanted in Cuba, as a CNN intern. It was surprisingly easy

Assata Shakur, a member of the Black Liberation Army, leaves Middlesex County courthouse, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on April 25, 1977. AP

Shortly after arriving to Cuba, Assata Shakur was stopped by a policeman, not because she was a wanted fugitive and convicted cop killer in the United States but because she was Black.

It was clearly a seminal moment for Shakur, a Black Liberation Army member (perhaps now better known as godmother to Tupac) who would later die with a $2 million bounty on her head at the age of 78, as announced Friday by the Cuban Foreign Ministry.

In one of the few interviews she granted, I once asked Shakur if she had found the revolutionary paradise she was seeking in Cuba. She responded by telling me about the Cuban police officer who asked for her papers