From DiscoverNikkei.org

Yuri Kochiyama

Human rights and political activist (b.1921)

Yuri Kochiyama. Gift of Yuri Kochiyama.
Yuri Kochiyama.
Gift of Yuri Kochiyama.

A human rights advocate and political activist, Yuri Kochiyama has campaigned on issues of social justice from the rights of international political prisoners, nuclear disarmament, and redress for Japanese American interned during World War II and redress for African Americans. She has worked to build alliances between all cultural groups and fight against racism and for workers’ rights. During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, she became a close friend of Malcolm X and was by his side when he was assassinated in 1965.

Born Mary Nakahara in San Pedro, California, her parents were both Japanese immigrants. At the outbreak of World War II, her father was imprisoned at a federal penitentiary and died shortly after his release. Her family was forcibly removed and incarcerated at a detention camp at Jerome, Arkansas throughout the war. Experiencing the fear and ignorance caused by racism, she saw this as a direct parallel to the way African Americans were treated in the segregated South. Her commitment to eliminating racism became a driving force for the rest of her life.

Married shortly after leaving camp, her husband Bill Kochiyama was a veteran of the 442 Regimental Combat Team. They moved to New York City and in 1960, with their six children, chose to settle in the Harlem projects among the Latino and Black families. In these new surroundings, at the age of 40, she joined neighborhood parents in a grassroots movement for safer streets. In 1963, she was arrested while demonstrating for construction jobs for African Americans and Puerto Ricans. While in court, she had the opportunity to meet Malcolm X. She later joined his Organization for Afro-American Unity and became a follower of his internationalist concept of human rights and nationalism based on self-determination and self-reliance.. His murder in 1965 intensified her commitment to work for the dignity and equality of all people of color.

As of November 20, 2005

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