Yuri Kochiyama

A TESTAMENT OF COURAGE: A BRIEF LOOK AT THE LIFE AND ACTIVISM OF YURI KOCHIYAMA
By Chris Brown

In 1939, Germany invaded Poland touching off WWII; legendary gangster Al Capone, was released from prison after serving eight years for tax-evasion; President Roosevelt laid the cornerstone for The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.; the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had become pre-eminent in the field of domestic intelligence; a young John Wayne achieved stardom with his role in the film Stagecoach; Marian Wright Edelman, Tina Turner, and Margaret Atwood were born; Chick Webb, William Butler Yates, and Sigmund Freud had died; and in 1939, a young woman, from California, penned a creed in a school notebook that would shape the rest of her life and all those she came in contact with:

“What type of person I was, am, or become, or whatever others think of me, I hope to live by this one creed that which, not I alone, but all others I have ever come in contact with, formulated for me. I say “others” because I am only a part of all I have met.

“The Creed is this:

“To live a life without losing faith in God, my fellow men, and my country; to never sever ties between any institution or organization that I have been a small part; to never break one link of friendship, regardless of the time or distance that separates me from that friend, even if that friendship is only a memory stored away in my heart and mind.

“To never humiliate or look down on any person, group, creed, religion, nationality, race employment, or station in life, but rather to respect.

“To always keep in mind, that any opportunities, achievement, or happiness I have had, I owe to someone else; to be grateful for whatever has come my way through the aid of another, to repay every kindness, but should such a circumstance not arise, to pass it on to someone else.

“To love everyone; to never know the meaning of hate, or have one enemy. (An enemy, to me, is only created in one’s mind). Should another dislike me or hate me because of some of my weaknesses, my actions, or what I have said, or how I have felt or through prejudice, I will accept it without resettlement, but all the while I will do all in my personality to better my ways and make myself acceptable.

“To stay on the same “side of the track” as whoever I am with, but still live within the limits of my own ideals. Regardless of whatever my actions seem wrong in the eyes of society, I will do that which I am doing as long as I am not infringing on the happiness of another, hurting another, and as long as I can look at myself without feeling ashamed.

“To never harbor a feeling that someone has been unfair to me, but rather to feel in such a case, that I deserved it; to take every disappointment, disillusion, sorrow, and grief as a part of life; to never expect another to be indebted to help me, but should I be able to help anyone, to be grateful that I could be of use.

“To give the advantage, but never to ask for it; to be strict with myself, but not with others; to be humble enough to stoop to any degree as long as it is in service and another.

“This creed, that people and experience have made me, I will sincerely try to keep, for if I fail even one portion of it, and although it will be unknown to them, I will be failing not only myself, but those who are the living part of this creed.

“And this creed, I call “twenty-two.” It is my philosophy of life.

“Dear Heavenly Father-Help me live it.”


Beginnings
She was born Mary Yuriko (Yuri) Nakahara, the only daughter of Seiichi, the son of a retired Samurai, and Tsuya Nakahara; both Issei (first-generation Japanese) on May 19, 1921, and raised in San Pedro California, along with her twin brother Peter (Pete) and older brother Arthur (Art).

As much as Yuri enjoyed growing up in the friendly cosmopolitan small town, she felt constricted in her environment. She felt that she needed to leave her confines and open herself to new ideas, meet new people, and learn from life’s experiences.

“In my youth, I don’t remember anything political, because I just wasn’t political. I didn’t know that there were so many things wrong with this society which should not have been; the racism, the inequality, the injustices. I wasn’t aware, and I wasn’t looking for this kind of thing. I just lived deaf, dumb and blind and doing the usual things that girls do at that age.”

Yuri, by her own admission, was a typical “all-American” girl. As a teenager and young adult, she volunteered at the YWCA, the Girl Scouts, and the Homer Toberman Settlement House that served the Mexican community of San Pedro. She taught arts and crafts, tennis, first aid to teenagers at the Red Cross, and Sunday School at her local Presbyterian Church.

But the normal American life in which Yuri found herself in; the life that was depicted in Norman Rockwell paintings that graced the covers of The Saturday Evening Post; the life that she yearned to move on from; to see the World and experience new adventures; this life was about to be changed forever.


Pearl Harbor
December 7, 1941 fell on a Sunday. As she had done for many years, Yuri was teaching Sunday School that day. After Sunday School, she returned home in the late morning. As it so happened, her father had returned home from the hospital where he had undergone treatment for diabetes and a stomach ulcer. The news was continually being broadcast that the Empire of Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. Americans sat and listened intently as news filtered in from Hawaii; airfields bombed, hospitals hit, US Naval ships severely damaged, the USS Arizona alone suffered 1,102 casualties and sank to the bottom of ocean, along with several other ships.

“We being American citizens and yet of Japanese ancestry, of course we were a little disturb (by the attack), but we were also in a spot. In our family and in most Japanese American families, the kids were very American in thought, in ideas, certainly putting America into place that it was our country.”

However, America was beginning to show a new face. As more reports began to stream in on the death and destruction in Pearl Harbor, newsreels began to demonize Japan as a blood-thirsty, war-hungry nation. Likewise, many Americans, due to ignorance, racism, anger and fear, lumped loyal Japanese Americans in the same category.

The FBI stepped up its surveillance of Japanese Americans, something that they had been doing for some time before the attacks. Most of their investigating resulted in nothing that would suggest that anyone was involved in subversive activity with Japan, still the FBI persisted. Now with a new zeal to see “Justice done” after the tragic events of Pearl Harbor; and to find any information that they could use against loyal, law-abiding Americans, the FBI pressed forward.

A few days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Nakahara family eagerly awaited the arrival of a good friend of Seiichi Nakahara, Admiral Nomura, who would be flying into Los Angeles from San Francisco on business. Seiichi had a great dinner planned for his friend, and the Admiral was expecting to sample samma fish, a special Japanese delicacy. But plans were suddenly changed and the admiral had to fly to Washington, D.C. Before he boarded the plane, Admiral Nomura sent Seiichi a telegram that said: “Sorry, cannot meet you for dinner. Regret unable to eat samma.” Although he was disappointed that he would not be able to have his friend for dinner at his house, little did Seiichi know how much turmoil that telegram would cause.

The FBI intercepted the telegram just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor and deemed the word ‘samma’ to be suspiciously treasonous. Because Seiichi owned a short-wave radio and outdoor antenna to keep in contact with Japanese mariners, he further aroused the FBI’s suspicions. Later, Yuri and her family found out that the FBI had rented a house directly across the street from their home specifically to spy on Seiichi and plan his arrest.

Yuri had just arrived home after Sunday School on December 7th. Aside from her father, there was no one present in the household during the following events:

“I saw two or three very tall White men standing in front of our door. I went to the door to see what they wanted. And they asked if ‘Seiichi Nakahara was home?’ And he had just come back the day before from the hospital, and I said; ‘Yes he’s sleeping right now.’ And they said, ‘Where?’ And I pointed to the room where he was sleeping, and they walked right in; woke him up; told him to put on his bathrobe and slippers; and they rushed him right out before I could say anything or ask where they were taking him.

“And then I called my mother who was just down the street visiting my aunt and I said: “Mom come home right away because some men have identified themselves as FBI and they took Pop away.

“And it was then the beginning of what began happening to us, the Japanese people, living on the West Coast”

On February 19th, 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 ordering the removal of all Japanese Americans – and anyone with more than one-sixteenth Japanese blood – from “strategic areas,” including California, Oregon, Washington, and parts of Arizona.

Anti-Japanese sentiment surged during World War II, and many families like the Nakahara’s, 120,000 strong, from proud Japanese ancestry; 70 percent of whom were American born citizens and the remaining 30 percent Japanese immigrants who had been denied the possibility of citizenship; were forcibly removed from their homes, lost their valuables, cars, clothing, and businesses overnight; and were imprisoned in internment camps.

As for Seiichi Nakahara, Yuri and her family believe that he was detained and tortured throughout his entire interrogation. Because the FBI could find no substantiating evidence to back up their claims of subversion, and more than likely due to his deteriorating health condition was beginning to become terminal, they released him.

When Seiichi arrived home several weeks later, he could no longer talk. The family was concerned if he could see, hear or recognize anyone. His body was emaciated; his once sharp mind had declined dramatically. Laying lifelessly, stripped of his dignity, he died on January 21, 1942, just days after his release.

Seiichi Nakahara was only fifty-six years old.

The Assembly Center
In 1925 the first regular postal stamps in the United States were issued; Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was banned in Tennessee schools; Greece became a republic when King George was deposed; London’s famous red double decker busses began operating; insulin was successfully used for the first time to treat a patient; Robert Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, and Gore Vidal were born; William Jennings Bryan, Christy Mathewson, and Battling Siki were dead. And on Christmas Day in 1925, Santa Anita race track opened in Southern California.

The Santa Anita racetrack is the oldest and the most prestigious racetrack in all of Southern California. In 1935 Santa Anita ran the first Santa Anita Handicap. The race’s $100,000 purse, the largest of any race up until that time, produced it’s nickname; ‘The Big Cap.’ This was also the track where the famed racehorse Seabiscuit, won the Santa Anita handicap in his last start.

But during the years of 1942 to 1945, there would be no races at Santa Anita. Between 1942 to 1945, the track became an assembly center for tens of thousands of Japanese Americans. Yuri’s family was one of the many who spent time in the assembly center.

“All of us knew that we were going to be taken to an assembly center before we were going to be taken to a camp…Anywhere outside of Zone One which was: California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona, was the only place we were going to be allowed to stay. And we weren’t going to be allowed to live in the Eastern part of the U.S. but in the mid-West somewhere we would be in a camp.

“So we were all prepared for that. And the papers had all sorts of information. And each person could only take what they could carry. Of course a mother could only carry a baby and maybe clothes for the baby. And they also told us the things that we couldn’t take. Anything that could be used as a weapon. So nobody could take a knife or fork. I think we could take spoons, of course we could take bedding.

“On April 1st we were given notice to be at a certain block. And there we saw all these Asian Americans. We didn’t even know they were living in San Pedro. There were a few people to see us off, but I don’t think people knew that that was the day we were leaving. It was in some ways exciting, and in other ways frightening, because we weren’t sure how long we were going to be at the place they were taking us.

“And the car caravan began to move. And we didn’t know where we were going, but we ended up at the Santa Anita assembly center,”

Santa Anita was the largest of 12 assembly centers on the West Coast, and housed 20,000 people; other assembly centers sizes varied, but most housed about 600 or 700 people. Yuri was overwhelmed by how many Japanese Americans she encountered;

“The place was huge! I had never seen so many Japanese Americans before in my life!”

At first Yuri’s family was placed in horse stalls at the Santa Anita Racetrack. The smell of manure made many Issei sick. In the sparse space the Nikkei (those of Japanese heritage in the U.S.) made their living quarters as livable as possible.

As time progressed, barracks were built to accommodate the families. Yuri continually admired the creativity of the Japanese people during these troubling times. Many at the center formed organizing committees to address grievances, arrange who would do what in the center and so on.

Yuri, continued to teach Sunday School at the center for the younger mostly junior high-aged Nisei schoolgirls. While waiting to be relocated to the internment camps, Yuri and many others wanted to do something to help the war effort and “our boys in the service.” She was particular motivated after she found out that some of her school girls had brothers in the military. They thought it would be a good idea to write to them. The group called itself “The Crusader”’ and the class began to grow as some of the older girls, who also had brothers in the military, joined as well.

The group continued to grow and they wrote many letters to Japanese GIs who were mostly stationed overseas, mostly in an attempt to keep their spirits up during this difficult time.

Soon, however, the girls were split up to different internment camps. They all promised to continue The Crusaders writing campaign no matter where they were. Yuri, her mother and older brother Art were placed in a camp in Jerome, Arkansas. It was here, in Jerome, that Yuri would begin to see things in a new light and set her on a course that would transform her life forever.

The Camp
The Jerome camp was a dismal swampland surrounded by a forest and not much else. Here would be the home for the Nakahara family for the duration of the war.

In the camps, doctors, nurses, dentists, and other skilled workers were not provided by the US government. All those who had training in these areas, or even rudimentary skills were assigned to these tasks. For assistance, they had people who were willing to learn how to do proper first aid, typing, janitorial work and other jobs, but many were unsure of how to do the jobs at first.

“We didn’t know a urinal from a drinking fountain! But we tried and we made so many mistakes and got balled out for it, but that was the only way you could learn so we kept at it.”

Meanwhile, Art attempted to enlist in the army but his poor health prevented him from doing so. Pete, Yuri’s twin brother joined and was stationed at Fort McArthur in San Pedro. Because he could read, write and speak Japanese, Pete took some tests and then was sent to Military Intelligence School at Camp Savage, Minnesota.

Pete’s first assignment as a translator took him overseas with the Sixth Australian Division at Indrooroopilly, Australia, to interrogate Japanese prisoners of war. After this, Pete was transferred to the Sixth Army at Leyte and Luzon Islands to translate captured enemy documents and broadcast surrender appeals to Japanese troops.

By October 1942, of that same year ten internment camps had been built in the deserts, mountains, swamplands, and salt flats of America, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans and people of Japanese descent were interned.

Although this whole experience was life-shattering for Yuri and the others interned;

“one good thing came out of it: that’s where I met Bill Kochiyama! He was the handsomest Nisei I had ever met, but I felt a little intimidated. Here I was – a small town Sunday School teaching provincial from California, and there was this self-assured New Yorker who exuded such energy and confidence.”

Theirs was a whirlwind courtship, and after only three visits, Yuri new she was madly in love. Bill’s family was interned in Topaz and he was set on joining the army. In April of 1944, just before Bill was to leave with his unit, he asked Yuri to come to Hattisburg, MS to marry him. Yuri’s mother approved, but on the day of the wedding, Bill’s father sent a telegram stating that he wanted to meet his ‘future daughter-in-law’ first. Although, both were sadden, Yuri and Bill both agreed to wait until after the war and Bill’s discharge from the army to get married.

By 1945 the war was over. Yuri had stayed in Hattisburg, MS, working with the USO. She stayed and worked there for two years taking care of the wives of the Nikkei soldiers, finding them housing, arrange weekly luncheons and activities. After working in Hattisburg, Yuri eventually moved back to California and tried to find work. But even though the war was over, even though the Japan had surrendered, and the Nazis defeated, work was hard to come by. Before the war, she sometimes went by the name ‘Mary Wong” in order to get work, but now most employers required identity cards.

“San Pedro’s ‘Skid Row.’ There they were willing to take chances on hiring a Japanese American, but I never lasted to long (from a couple of hours to maybe a whole night, working night shifts) before I would get identified as a “Jap” and cause a ruckus. My bosses were afraid of losing business or seeing violence, so they would let me go. Because the war was just over and people regarded us as Japanese and not Americans, we were still treated as enemies.”

Yuri, labored on finding work where she could and patiently waiting for Bill to call. Finally, he did. On New Years Day 1946, Bill Kochiyama was honorably discharged from the army and returned to New York. Yuri saved what money she could and road by buss to be with him. They were married on February 9, 1946.

Yuri and Bill settled down in New York City. Before she had come to New York, she had never met any African Americans, but when she found her first job at the Chock Full O’ Nuts restaurant chain in New York City, she discovered the far reaching arm of racism. Throughout the next two decades, Yuri’s eyes were open to the second class status that Asian Americans, Native Americans, and African Americans all shared together. During these formative decades, she dove into issues surrounding civil rights, community issues and meeting famous individuals like Cy Oliver, African American actor Canada Lee, and Daisy Bates who was the instrumental force behind the ‘Little Rock Nine’ who desegregated Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas.

But it was in the sweltering 60s, the decade in which the nation endured the assassination of president. John F. Kennedy; Martin Luther’s King March on Washington, and later his own death at the hands of an assassin’s bullet, and the rising war in Vietnam that Yuri Kochiyama would meet a man coming out of a court house in New York City that would, again, challenge and reshape her World view. His given name was Malcolm Little, but he was better known, at the time, as Malcolm X.


To be continued

Part II: An Activist is born
By Chris Brown

In 1947, a year after Bill and Yuri Kochiyama were married the first of their six children, Billy, was born. Daughter Audee followed in 1949; three years later, Lorrie was born in 1952; Eddie was born in 1955; Jimmy followed two years later in 1957; and Tommy the youngest of the clan came into the World in 1959.

A year after Billy was born, the Kochiyama’s succeeded in getting into one of the low-income housing projects—Amsterdam Houses—on 63rd Street. It was a predominately Black and Puerto Rican housing project located next to the Lincoln Center, and it was here that the remainder of Yuri’s and Bill had the rest of their family.

The climate of the of being a mother raising children in the 50s was busy for Yuri with the standard things that mothers of the time did; getting her boys to Boy Scouts meetings, her two girls to Girl Scout meetings, Little League Baseball, and hosting various people who would op in from time to time.

But it was 1958 they began to shape Yuri’s involvement in civil rights issues. In 1958, nine Black high school students, known as the “Little Rock Nine” ho were credited with desegregating Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, came to New York to be feted by many different civil rights groups, including the NAACP.

Through the efforts of a friend Juanita Andrade, Yuri was able to meet Daisy Bates, the leader and counselor of the nine students. It was after this meeting that Yuri began to take a serious interest in the civil rights movement. She kept up to date on the issues that dealt with civil unrest and the demonstrations that erupted in the South. By the close of the 50s, the civil rights movement was active in all parts of the Southern states.

Looking on at all of these events in the newspapers and television lit a spark that was to ignite an explosion into full-time activism for Yuri and her family. As the 50s stepped aside and the turbulent 60s were ushered in, Yuri’s life was about to take another profound change. For it was during the 60s that she would meet a man who would inspire her political beliefs like none before.


The 60s and Harlem
During the 1960s the nation would see some of its greatest triumphs and greatest tragedies. John F. Kennedy would become president of the United States after one of the closest elections in the nation’s history and three years later be struck down by an assassin’s bullet; Martin Luther King would become the prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement, and then he himself would fall to gunmen’s bullets; America would put a man on the moon in 1969; the war in Vietnam would rage and young people in America would rise up in opposition to it.

The 60s was an amazing and exciting decade to be in Harlem, a community thriving with so much activity. Socially, politically, and culturally—Harlem was on fire and the Kochiyama family got swept up in the whirlwind. All of Yuri and Bill’s children marched together in civil rights events. Yuri looked on this time with her children with admiration:

“I am proud of how much my children have in their own way come to understand the importance of justice and to stand up on behalf of others.”

In December of 1960 Yuri and her family moved to a new project in Harlem—the Manhattanville Houses on 126th and Broadway. It was a low income housing project, and it was in this setting, at the age of 40, that Yuri’s political activism began to take shape.

Many memorable community gatherings were held in their new house. One such gathering was to hear the words of the Freedom Riders, an interracial group of activists from all over the U.S. who boarded buses headed for the South in order to protest segregated public transportation. In 1961 several busloads of Freedom Riders from New York left for the South. Some of the buses were overturned in Alabama and set on fire. So when the Freedom Riders returned to New York, Yuri invited some of them to speak at her house. One of the speakers was James Peck, one of the most severely beaten Riders. He was kicked, stomped on, and ended up in the hospital with fifty-seven stitches on his face. The violence upon the Freedom Fighters, at the hands of racist Southerners, was a wake up call for people in the North to realize the struggle in the South.

In 1962 Yuri and Bill became involved in the Harlem Parents Committee, a grassroots movement to get safer streets and integrated education in the Harlem community. On weekends, the children attended the Harlem Parents Committee Freedom School:

“One day, all the parents were asked to take their children to a designated location (131st and Fifth Ave). They were to put all their toddlers in the street to protest the number of children being struck down at the corners lacking traffic signals. I brought Jimmy and Tommy, who were ages two and four, respectively, and it was their first experience being in a demonstration, even though they were too young to be aware of what was really happening. Because of the cooperation and participation of so many parents, the city responded quickly installing traffic lights at every city block.”

In 1963 a major shift swept through the Kochiyama family when four little girls were killed in the bombing of a Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. There would be no celebrations of Christmas that year: no presents for the kids, and no Christmas tree. To her surprise, all of the children seemed to understand that a horrible racist act of violence could not be taken lightly. Instead, money was donated to movements in the South. In the summer of 63, Yuri and Bill, along with the children, stopped in Birmingham on the way to California so that the children could visit the church where the four girls were killed. The pictures of the young girls were front-paged in the mainstream newspapers. The younger kids were as concerned and troubled as the older three. Subsequent holidays were also observed differently from the past (although not as drastically as Christmas ’63).

“1963 was a pivotal year for us in terms of our involvement and education in the movement as a family. That year I took all six children to Downstate medical Center in Brooklyn to join hundreds of demonstrators who were demanding construction jobs for Blacks and Puerto Ricans. It was also the year of the big New York City Boycott and the year that the whole family enrolled in the Harlem Freedom School located at 514 West 126th Street. Luckily this was just across the street from where we lived. We were still very active in the Harlem Parents Committee, and we picketed schools in Harlem to close down until changes took place. It was a wonderful experience interacting with parents from the Harlem community who were fighting to bring quality education to their areas. Soon, there was a citywide effort that spread from the Manhattan Borough to the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. 1963 was also the year that I met Malcolm X.”


Brother Malcolm
Malcolm X was, perhaps, the most influential person on Yuri’s political life and ideas. She was a great admirer of his work before they met, and an associate and friend after.

Yuri says of Malcolm:

“Before I met Malcolm, I had no understanding of the two trends in the Black Movement. I was involved only with the civil rights movement, represented by Martin Luther King and his vision of harmonious integration of people to make a greater America through nonviolence. But after listening to Malcolm, I strongly felt that his position of total liberation from the jurisdiction of the Untied States was the only way that Black people in this country could be able to empower themselves, to determine their own destiny. His position of self-determination, self-reliance, self-defense, and a sovereign nation was integral to realizing one’s own potentials, humanity and dignity. It is impossible to attain justice in a racist country. Malcolm helped me to see, more clearly, the true essence of the United States in all its negative reality.”

Yuri’s first encounter with Malcolm took place when she saw him walk into a courthouse in Brooklyn, where he was instantly surrounded by people shaking his hand. Yuri was shy at first approaching this tall, dominating figure, still she moved forward wanting to get a closer look at this man she had long since admired. But when they’re eyes met, she asked if she could shake his hand.

“What for?” Malcolm asked looking suspiciously. Yuri answered, “Your giving direction to your people,” Malcolm strode out of the crowd with a smile and shook Yuri’s hand.

The first time that Yuri and Malcolm were able to talk at any great length was not until a year and a half later in 1964, when Yuri’s family hosted several reporters from Hiroshima/Nagasaki World Peace Study. The reporters had invited Malcolm X to come speak with them, but had received no answered. In the middle of the actual conference, a knock on the Kochiyama’s door opened to reveal Malcolm and a bodyguard, come to speak to the small convention. He thanked the Japanese for coming to Harlem, and brought them to Harlem’s “World’s Worst Fair”, a tour of Harlem’s neighborhoods and living conditions in direct contrast to the ongoing “World’s Fair” in Flushing Meadow, and later spoke of some of his beliefs and ideas.

Very soon afterwards Yuri became active in The Organization of Afro American Unity (OAAU) and also joined his liberation school to gain background information on Black history and politics:

“…we didn’t know anything about Black history, Black thinking, or Black culture, and in order to understand to the Black community and its people, we thought we’d better sign up. So we enrolled, along with our three eldest children, Billy, Audee, and Aichi. The education we received was priceless.”

There were two trends in the Civil Rights Movement, one following the other in influence in popularity in the mid 1900’s. At first, groups such as the national Association for the Advancement of Colored people (NAACP), and the Student nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) spearheaded the beginnings of the civil rights movement, fighting mainly against the issue of segregation in America through the courtroom, marches, protests and civil disobedience. Several key victories won by the civil rights movement during this time included the court case; Brown VS The Board of Education which made segregation in public schools unconstitutional, and the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in voter registration requirements, and public accommodations such as restaurants, hotels and theatres, and withdrew government funding from programs which were discriminatory.

In spite of these victories, progress was slow, and many people lost faith in working for equality within the system. The movement for nationalism, of which Malcolm X was an influential leader, arose in the mid-1960s and was based around the idea that the one solution for racism in America was for Blacks to form their own nation and government, completely separate from Whites.

As his political philosophy matured, Malcolm toned down his separatists beliefs, realizing that it alienated people of color who might be fighting for the same dream.

Although he still had a distant dream of Blacks organizing their own government, he focused on improving conditions for Blacks in America now, and went on to say:

“We will work with anyone, with any group, no matter what their color is, as long as they are genuinely interested in ending Black injustice.”


Yuri Kochiyama was one of those who worked closely with Malcolm X and was prepared to push for justice for Blacks who felt the oppressive yoke of American Apartheid. But on a Sunday afternoon in an auditorium that was host to many community events in Harlem, Malcolm’s dream would receive a severe setback.


February 21, 1965
The Audubon Ballroom opened in 1912. When it originally opened, the Audubon was one of the first Fox theatre group for vaudeville and movies to come to Washington Heights and Inwood. The Audubon was two-story structure; on the first floor was where the vaudeville greats of the day would perform. It was also the first theatre in the community, in 1927, to feature a “talkie” entitled THE JAZZ SINGER starring Al Jolson. In the upstairs portion of the structure was where the Ballroom itself was. In addition the upstairs was host for community events and political activity from a variety of groups. The basement was also used for special occasions.

During its heyday, the Audubon was the place to be in Harlem, but over the years through the changing face of the community and the neglect thereof, the Audubon began to deteriorate into a low rent dive for mostly Black and Puerto Rican functions. It was at this venue that Yuri attended OAAU meetings on Sundays. And it was on February 21st, 1965 that she would witness that would again change her life:

“Around that tie or even before that time, there were a lot of rumors that Malcolm was going to be killed. No one knew if it was going to be the New York Police, FBI, CIA, or Elijah Mohammad’s NOI.

“When February 21st came, three speakers were supposed to be there, I remember only the name of one, Rev. Galameson a very well known minister from Brooklyn, but that day not one of the speakers showed up and that worried some of the people who were doing security work. And I believe that Malcolm knew that something was wrong. And the night before the meeting he stayed in a hotel he didn’t want to stay with his family because he didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

“Malcolm must’ve had some strange feeling because he first told his wife; ‘Don’t come, don’t bring the kids’, and then at the last minute he called and said; ‘Get someone to drive you. It’s safe you come and bring the kids’

“I went there with my son (Billy) who was 16. We were so excited waiting for Malcolm to speak. And there were about 400 people in there. And me and Billy were midway in the crowd, closer up front than in back on the left side. And as Malcolm was about to begin speaking, all of a sudden two guys, almost across from us jumped up and one said; “Get your hands out of my pockets!’ And everybody turned to where those two people were, including Malcolm’s two bodyguards who, like everybody else got sucked into the commotion; and so nobody was really guarding Malcolm. And Malcolm just said; ‘Hold it, hold it!’

And Malcolm came from out behind the podium. And there must have been three guys in the first row, and Malcolm must have been a perfect target. They were near Betty and girls, but anyway they started shooting; and of course the other two were running back towards the exits. Malcolm had told all his people that he didn’t want anyone to bring a gun, and all of them agreed, but one guy, one of Malcolm’s men decided that he was going to hide a gun in his socks, and it’s luck that he did because if he didn’t everyone of them (the assailants) would have gotten away. And this man shot one of the men in the leg. But the police played a strange role in all of this. They didn’t manage to catch any of the guys who were involved. And I think that they were part of all of this.

“People couldn’t believe that Malcolm was shot. I mean, it was pandemonium. There were those in the crowd trying to find the original two guys who started the fuss and those that really did do the killing, people were looking behind the curtains and all of that. And some guy passed me who seemed to know how to get up on the stage and so I followed him. And he didn’t stop where Malcolm had fallen, he went straight back to the back of the stage and moved all the curtains to see if someone was hiding there.

“So I kneeled down where Malcolm’s had was and I put his head on my lap and he was hit all over. And others came right away and tore off his shirt, and tie and you could see where he was hit.

“I mean people were crying, children were crying, Betty (Malcolm’s wife) was crying. People asked me as they loaded him on a stretcher; ‘Did he say anything?’ And I said no. It didn’t seem like he could say anything at all, He was hit so many times I think he wanted to say something, but I don’t think he could. And so he went. Harlem mourned that day. Even those that did not go, they will not forget”

Malcolm X, the once strong, elegant, articulate figure who gave millions of Black people and other people of color a sense of pride and a sense of self, died shortly after arriving in the Presbyterian hospital not far from the Audubon. To this day questions still remain on who or whom was actually involved in the killing.


Conclusion
Yuri continues on with the work that she had done with Malcolm. She has reached out to more broader pursuits; tackling the issues of the Puerto Rican people and the discrimination they faced in the 60s and 70s in New York; following a variety of trials of Blank Panther Party members and working closely with them in her neighborhood; and consistently calling for reparations to the 120,000 Japanese Americans who were unjustly interned during WWII.

Yuri Kochiyama continues to advocate for the rights of all humanity, in particular the oppressed peoples of the World. To this day she consistently writes to political prisoners such as Mumia Abu Jamal, and Leonard Peltier, and a host of others whose wrongful convictions have been covered in various news outlets the World over.

She continues to speak out about the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the occupation in Palestine, and the eroding of our civil liberties her in America under a regime that knows no end.

Yuri Kochiyama is a force. A force more powerful than any bullet, jail, or guard can control. For Yuri is the mark for which all of us who call ourselves activists should strive for.

Even as I conclude this article, Yuri contacted me by phone and reminded me that we have an appointment to visit an African American man wrongfully convicted:

“Remember that you need to get his story out there Chris. You need to help me fight the injustice that has been done to him.”

I promise her I will be at her home at 6:45 AM in order to make the drive out to see this individual.

“Alright” she says, “Make sure you get some rest and eat right. I worry about you some times.”

That’s Yuri Kochiyama a testament of faith, a testament of hope, and a testament of courage.


Christopher Brown is a radical grassroots journalist based in San Francisco. Check out his blog: www.cbgonzo.blogspot.com