[Pnews] Harlem's Long Time Human Rights, Political Prisoner Activist & Comrade To Malcolm X - Sis. Yuri Kochiyama Dies At 93

[Prisoner News]

Dear Friends,

It is with sadness that I share the news of Yuri Kochiyama's passing on 
June 1.  She lived a life dedicated to fighting the systems of 
oppression and to treating the everyday person with dignity and 
respect.  I am so honored and humbled to have had her in my life.

Warmly,
Diane Fujino


  Harlem's Long Time Human Rights/Political Prisoner Activist & Comrade
  To Malcolm X - Sis. Yuri Kochiyama Dies At 93

*Yuri Kochiyama at memorial for World War II Japanese-American 
Concentration Camp Internees in 2004.*
* *
*Japanese-American activist Yuri Kochiyama has died of natural causes in 
Berkeley, Calif., at the age of 93. The lifelong champion of civil & 
human rights causes in the Black, Latino, Native American and 
Asian-American communities passed away peacefully in her sleep on Sunday 
morning, according to her family.*
*Born in 1921 as Mary Yuriko Nakahara, Kochiyama spent the early years 
of her life in San Pedro, Calif., a small town south of Los Angeles. 
Months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, she and her family 
were forced to relocate to internment camps along with tens of thousands 
of other Japanese-Americans. She met her late husband Bill Kochiyama, 
who served with other Japanese-American soldiers in the 442nd Regimental 
Combat Team, at the Jerome Relocation Center in Arkansas, where she 
spent two years.*
*The couple married after World War II and moved to start their family 
in New York City. Living in Harlem's housing projects among Black and 
Puerto Rican neighbors inspired her interest in the civil rights 
movement. Kochiyama held weekly open houses for activists in the 
family's apartment, where she taped newspaper clippings to the walls and 
kept piles of leaflets on the kitchen table. "Our house felt like it was 
the movement 24/7," said her eldest daughter Audee Kochiyama-Holman.**
*
* *
*Her close friend and comrade Malcolm X , whom she first met in 1963, 
helped radicalize her activism. Kochiyama began focusing her work on 
Black nationalism and was with Malcolm X during his final moments. 
Minutes after gunmen fired at Malcolm X in 1965 during his last speech 
in New York City, she rushed on the scene to provide aid & comfort. The 
historic photo below shows Yuri in a Black dress peering worriedly 
through horn-rimmed glasses at Malcolm X's bullet-riddled body.
*
* *
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llgnpgANQv1qcdek0o1_1280.jpg?.jpg
*In the 1980s, she and her husband pushed for reparations and a formal 
government apology for Japanese-American internees through the Civil 
Liberties Act, which President Ronald Reagan signed into law in 1988.
*
* *
*A supporter of both the Black Panther Party & Black Liberation Army; 
Sis. Yuri along with fellow OAU member Herman Ferguson was also one of 
the Co-Founders of the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee which sponsors 
both the Annual Dinner To Suport US Captured Political Prisoners as well 
as the Annual Malcolm X Day Pilgrimage To Malcolm X's grave site. Both 
she and Bro. Malcolm shared the same May 19th birthday.*
* *
*Her continued dedication to social causes inspired younger generations 
of activists, especially within the Asian-American community.*
*"She was not your typical Japanese-American person, especially a 
nisei," or a second-generation Japanese-American, said Tim Toyama, 
Kochiyama's second cousin who wrote a one-act play about her 
relationship with Malcolm X, **She was definitely ahead of her time, and 
we finally caught up with her."*


-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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