Years later, she held Malcolm X's dying head in her lap. Her life connected struggles most people kept separate.
Yuri Kochiyama grew up as Mary Yuriko Nakahara in San Pedro, California—a small fishing town south of Los Angeles. She was an ordinary young woman. She wanted to be a teacher. She played tennis. She became the first female student body officer at her high school. She had dreams that didn't extend much beyond her tight-knit community. Then December 7, 1941 changed everything. After Pearl Harbor, suspicion and fear swept across America. Within months, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forced removal of over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. Most were American citizens. Many had never even been to Japan. FBI agents knocked on the Kochiyamas' door. They gave the family days to prepare. Leave your home. Leave your business. Leave everything you've built. Bring only what you can carry. Yuri watched her father—a respected fish merchant with connections throughout the community—be taken away for questioning. He never came home. He died of a stomach ulcer while detained, before the family could even be reunited. Yuri, her mother, and her brother were sent first to the Santa Anita Assembly Center, where they were housed in former horse stables that still reeked of manure. Then they were shipped by train to Jerome, Arkansas—a swampland camp surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers. They spent two years there. Two years as prisoners in their own country. For Yuri, the journey to Arkansas opened her eyes to something she'd been sheltered from in California. As the train traveled through the South, she saw segregation signs. "Whites Only" diners. Separate drinking fountains. Black communities living in conditions that mirrored what she was about to experience. She realized: her family's imprisonment wasn't unique. It was part of a larger system that treated people of color as less than human. But that understanding didn't turn into activism immediately. Inside Jerome, Yuri coped by being useful. She organized a group called the Crusaders—young people who wrote letters to Japanese American soldiers fighting for the country that had imprisoned their families. Eventually, her group was writing to 3,000 soldiers. One of those soldiers was Bill Kochiyama—handsome, charming, and like her, trying to make sense of serving a country that questioned his loyalty. They fell in love in a concentration camp. And after the war, in early 1946, Yuri moved to New York City to marry him. They settled in a housing project in Harlem, raising six children while living among Black and Puerto Rican neighbors. And it was there—surrounded by communities fighting for dignity and justice—that Yuri's activism truly began. The Kochiyamas' apartment became a hub. Every Friday and Saturday night, they opened their doors. Sometimes a hundred people crammed into their small space—activists, organizers, Freedom Riders, people fighting for civil rights. Yuri taped newspaper clippings to the walls. Stacks of leaflets covered the kitchen table. "Our house felt like it was the movement 24/7," her daughter Audee later said. Then in October 1963, Yuri met someone who would transform her understanding of liberation: Malcolm X. She and Bill had enrolled their children in Harlem's Freedom Schools to learn Black history. They attended rallies. They participated in the 1964 New York City school boycott protesting segregated schools. But when Yuri met Malcolm X, something shifted. He didn't just talk about civil rights—he talked about human rights. He connected the struggle of Black Americans to liberation movements worldwide. He spoke about imperialism and colonialism. He linked oppression across borders. Yuri finally had language for what she'd witnessed on that train ride through the South. For what her family had experienced. For the connections between different communities' suffering. She joined Malcolm X's Organization of Afro-American Unity. She attended his Liberation School. She learned to see her Japanese American experience as part of a global struggle against racism and oppression. February 21, 1965. The Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. Yuri was in the audience when Malcolm X began his final speech. Gunmen opened fire. Chaos erupted. While others ran or froze, Yuri rushed toward him. She knelt beside Malcolm X's bullet-riddled body and cradled his head in her lap. She stayed with him as he died, surrounded by the panic and screaming. A Life magazine photographer captured the moment—a Japanese American woman in horn-rimmed glasses, looking down at Malcolm X with grief and determination on her face. That photo became iconic. It showed the world something powerful: solidarity across racial lines. Asian Americans and Black Americans united in struggle. Malcolm's assassination could have broken Yuri. Instead, it deepened her commitment. For the next five decades, she showed up for every struggle she could find. She fought for Puerto Rican independence—joining the 1977 takeover of the Statue of Liberty to demand freedom for Puerto Rican political prisoners. She campaigned for reparations for Japanese Americans—testifying, organizing, refusing to let America forget what it had done. In 1988, President Reagan finally signed the Civil Liberties Act, providing $20,000 and an apology to each surviving internee. She advocated for political prisoners she believed were imprisoned unjustly. She opposed the Vietnam War. She supported nuclear disarmament. She fought police brutality. After September 11, 2001, when anti-Muslim hatred surged, 80-year-old Yuri spoke at peace rallies. She drew parallels to Japanese American internment and warned against repeating history. "We Japanese Americans should feel a kinship with Arab and Muslim people who are the newest targets of racism," she said. "Something that we have experienced too." Her activism was controversial. She took stances many found extreme. She supported causes that made people uncomfortable. She refused to limit herself to what was considered acceptable. But that was the point. Yuri understood something fundamental: liberation is interconnected. You can't fight for your own freedom while ignoring others' oppression. "Don't become too narrow," she said. "Live fully. Meet all kinds of people. You'll learn something from everyone." Yuri Kochiyama died in 2014 at age 93, having spent more than 50 years as one of America's most prominent Asian American activists. In 2016, Google honored what would have been her 95th birthday with a Google Doodle. The response was telling. Thousands praised her legacy. But many white Americans called her a "terrorist" and demanded the doodle be removed. The controversy proved her point: people who challenge oppression will always make those in power uncomfortable. Today, Yuri's legacy lives in every activist who understands that solidarity across racial lines isn't optional—it's essential. In every organizer who shows up for struggles beyond their own community. In every movement that refuses to limit itself to single-issue activism. She proved that witnessing injustice is just the beginning. That being targeted by oppression gives you responsibility to fight it everywhere, not just for yourself. Yuri Kochiyama spent two years imprisoned by her own government simply for being Japanese American. She spent the next 70 years of her life making sure no one could ignore that it happened—and fighting to ensure it would never happen to anyone else. She was 20 when America put her in a camp. She was 44 when she held Malcolm X as he died. She was 93 when she finally stopped fighting. And in those decades between, she connected movements, bridged communities, and proved that the most powerful resistance is the kind that refuses to accept injustice anywhere. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39537): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39537 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116528188/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
