Yuri Kochiyama – Human Rights Activist – Freedom Fighter
✊🏽 “Our Liberation Is Bound Together”
Honoring Yuri Kochiyama — Revolutionary Ally, Freedom Fighter, and Beloved Comrade in the Black Liberation Movement
Yuri Kochiyama (1921–2014) was more than an ally — she was a co-strategist, a truth-teller, and a living bridge between movements. A Japanese American survivor of U.S. internment camps, she brought her own experience of state violence into deep solidarity with Black radical organizing — not as charity, but as shared struggle.
She stood beside Malcolm X in his final moments, cradling his head and offering life support after he was shot at the Audubon Ballroom. She had joined his Organization of Afro-American Unity and remained committed to his internationalist vision of liberation. Later, she became a member of the Black Panther Party, working alongside its leaders to fight imperialism, free political prisoners, and build revolutionary consciousness across communities of color.
Kochiyama’s support wasn’t symbolic. It was logistical, emotional, and strategic. She opened her Harlem apartment to organizers, wrote letters to the incarcerated, and helped build transnational coalitions that linked Black, Asian, Latinx, and Indigenous liberation.
“The movement is contagious, and the people in it are the ones who pass on the spirit.” — Yuri Kochiyama
Today, we honor her not just as a supporter of the Black movement — but as part of its living architecture. Her life reminds us that solidarity is not a slogan. It’s a practice. A discipline. A choice to show up, again and again, for freedom not yet won.
If you ever had the honor and privilege of meeting Yuri Kochiyama, you would know her to be the most gentle and humble of all human spirits. I knew her, and her husband, Bill, and visited with them in their Harlem apartment. Even though Yuri was a Japanese American, she was as committed to the full liberation of African American people as any African American activist I have ever known. She had a deep love for African American people. She had a deep love for oppressed people. Young African Americans who never knew of her should study her.
About The Author
