In a grainy video, a woman with flowing dreadlocks strolls through a market in Cuba, smelling spices and smiling at the camera. In another scene, she is wearing a black T-shirt, her long hair parted to reveal the words “framed, jailed, exile.”


In the video, Assata Shakur’s voice is high-pitched and soft, out of sync with the fact that she is a notorious fugitive convicted of the murder of a New Jersey state trooper. The footage comes from a documentary filmed in Cuba where Shakur — a.k.a. Joanne Deborah Chesimard — has lived since the early 1980s under political asylum. It is a celebration of her radical politics. In it she calls herself a revolutionary seeking freedom for “my people.”


Shakur’s 1977 conviction and later escape from prison have made her an icon of black power enthusiasts. Last week, it also made her the first woman ever to be named to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list.


It is the decision to add Shakur, 65, to the list of terrorists that has reopened old debates about radicalism and the racial politics of the early 1970s while spurring discussion about the meaning of “domestic terrorism.”


There is no question that Shakur was on the scene when the state trooper was murdered. But does she belong on a list that includes affiliates of international jihadist groups?
To begin to answer the question, one must understand Assata Shakur, the crime for which she was convicted, and the efforts to define that crime as an act of terrorism.
One must also grapple with the 100 or so working definitions of “domestic terrorist.”