was an American civil rights activist born in San Pedro, California to Japanese immigrants. She was interned at the Jerome War Relocation Center in Arkansas during World War II, an experience that influenced her views on racism in the United States. While interned, she helped run a letter-writing campaign to Nisei () soldiers, wrote for the Jerome camp newspaper, and volunteered with the United Service Organizations (USO). After the end of the war, Kochiyama moved to New York and eventually to Harlem, where she became involved in the civil rights movement.
At first working with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Kochiyama's friendship with civil rights leader Malcolm X led her to affiliate with Black nationalist organizations such as the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), and the Republic of New Afrika (RNA). Kochiyama advocated for political prisoners, including imprisoned members of the civil rights movement, and helped to found the National Committee to Defend Political Prisoners (NCDPP) in the early 1970s. She also supported the Puerto Rican independence movement. Kochiyama played an influential role in the Asian American movement and was a member of the organization Asian Americans for Action (AAA). In the 1980s, she participated in the redress movement for Japanese Americans interned during World War II, resulting in the signing of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which offered reparations to internment survivors.
Kochiyama is noted for her revolutionary nationalist views and her opposition to imperialism. She drew controversy in 2003 by praising Osama bin Laden, comparing him to Malcolm, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, and Fidel Castro. She has also been the subject of several biographies, children's books, and documentaries and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 alongside 1,000 other women.
Early life and education Yuri Kochiyama was born Mary Yuriko Nakahara on May 19, 1921, in the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles. Her mother and father were both Japanese immigrants. Her father, Seiichi Nakahara, was from Iwate, while her mother, Tsuyako Sawaguchi, was from Fukushima. According to a family history compiled by Kochiyama's cousin, Tama Kondo, and his wife, Mary Tama Kondo, Kochiyama's father was the son of a retired samurai. He arrived in the United States in 1907, working first as an orange picker and then as a fish canner before opening a fish market and starting a business called The Pacific Coast Fish Company. Her mother was an English teacher and piano instructor.
Due to the relative affluence and prestige that came with the success of her father's fishmongering business, Kochiyama enjoyed a comfortable childhood. She was raised Christian, with her family attending the St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Los Angeles. She also attended several nearby Christian Science and Presbyterian churches on her own initiative, working as a Sunday school teacher. However, she criticized aspects of the religion that she viewed as being overly sectarian or chauvinistic.
Kochiyama attended San Pedro High School. While there, she became involved in numerous extracurricular activities. She attended Japanese language school; became the school's first female student body officer; wrote articles for the local San Pedro News-Pilot; played tennis; and served as a counselor for the Bluebirds, the Girl Scouts, and the YWCA Girl Reserves. After graduating, she attended Compton Junior College, where she studied art, journalism, and English. She graduated in June 1941 with an arts degree, after which she struggled to find employment due to racial discrimination.
Internment of Japanese Americans The Japanese military launched an aerial assault on the naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, triggering the Pacific War between the United States and Japan and causing many Americans to become suspicious of Japanese Americans, viewing them as "undesirables". Soon after, the Kochiyama family's home was ransacked by members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who discovered photographs of Japanese naval ships. This, combined with her father's friendship with prominent Japanese figures such as Ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura, led the FBI to suspect him of espionage. He was detained at Terminal Island federal penitentiary. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which called for the forced internment of all people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast. Kochiyama's father, who had been experiencing health issues that were exacerbated by his imprisonment, died two days later on January 21, 1942, just after being released from the penitentiary.
In accordance with Roosevelt's order, the remaining members of Kochiyama's family were sent to the Santa Anita Assembly Center. While there, Kochiyama worked as a nurse's aide and helped to organize a group of Sunday school students called "the Crusaders". Despite being imprisoned, many Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) men joined the United States military as part of the 442nd Infantry Regiment. Because many of the Crusaders had relatives who had joined the military, they initiated a letter-writing campaign, first covering six soldiers but expanding to include roughly three thousand. The family spent seven months at Santa Anita before being sent to the Jerome War Relocation Center in Arkansas. While imprisoned at Jerome, she continued her work on the letter-writing campaign; wrote for the camp newspaper, the Denson Tribune; and volunteered with the United Service Organizations (USO).
Yuri met her future husband, a Nisei soldier named Bill Kochiyama, while working with the USO. They initially planned to get married at Camp Shelby, where Bill was stationed, in 1944, but the wedding was postponed due to objections from Bill's father, who wanted to meet Yuri before the two married. Soon after, Kochiyama left the camp to work with the USO in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and later to work with Nisei soldiers in Minneapolis. The Jerome War Relocation Center closed on June 30, 1944, and Yuri's family returned to San Pedro in 1945. Yuri moved to New York on January 23, 1946, and married Bill on February 9 of the same year.
Life in New York The couple's first two children were born in 1947, while Bill was attending college at Long Island University and Yuri was working as a waitress. They struggled financially for some time before Bill found work as a public relations officer for the Japan International Christian University Foundation (JICUF). Soon after, they had four more children. They held social gatherings at their home on Friday and Saturday nights. The popularity of these gatherings led their home to be nicknamed "Grand Central Station", with many important figures attending the gatherings, including Japanese Supreme Court justice Mansaburo Shoda and Ishwar Gulati, advisor to first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru. The couple also joined the Nisei Sino Service Organization (NSSO), which worked to support Asian American soldiers, and advocated for the Hiroshima Maidens, a group of 25 ( 'survivor of the bomb') who traveled to the United States in 1955 to receive reconstructive surgery.
Activism Civil rights movement
CORE activism In 1960, the Kochiyamas moved to Harlem—at the time a predominantly Black neighborhood—during which time they befriended James Peck, an activist for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) who was injured as a result of his activity with the Freedom Riders. Kochiyama joined CORE and the Harlem Parents Committee, an organization advocating for improved education for inner-city children, in 1963. Also in 1963, she participated in a series of protests organized by CORE at the construction site for the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. The purpose of the protests was to oppose the racially discriminatory admission policies of the unions at the construction site. Kochiyama attended the protests with her children. At one point, she was arrested alongside her son Billy for disorderly conduct, spending half a day in jail before her release. In the end, Black and Puerto Rican workers were not guaranteed employment at the construction site as the protesters had hoped, but the protests did attract new members to CORE's cause.
Friendship with Malcolm X The hearing for Kochiyama's arrest during the Medical Center protests took place on October 16, 1963, and it was there that she first encountered Malcolm X. She initiated a conversation with him, expressing admiration for his work but criticizing his "harsh stance on integration". Malcolm invited Kochiyama to meet with him at his office to discuss his stance on integration further but was unable to do so initially due to fears for his personal safety arising from his public conflict with Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Elijah Muhammad. The two did eventually meet again while Kochiyama was hosting an event at her house on behalf of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki World Peace Mission Study, a group of hibakusha activists calling for disarmament. They had expressed a desire to meet Malcolm while in the United States, and he gave a speech before the gathered activists. In the speech, he compared the plight of the hibakusha with the racism experienced by Black Americans and praised Asian communist leaders like Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong. Malcolm and Kochiyama continued to correspond after this as Malcolm traveled throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe. In 1964, Kochiyama also began attending lectures given by the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), a political advocacy organization created by Malcolm to further the civil rights movement.
Kochiyama was present at Malcolm's assassination at the Audubon Ballroom, where Malcolm was holding an OAAU rally, on February 21, 1965. While it is not entirely clear what happened that night, Malcolm was shot multiple times by several assailants wielding shotguns and semi-automatic handguns. Initially, Kochiyama stayed to comfort Malcolm's wife, Betty Shabazz, and his children. However, eventually, Kochiyama went onstage to try to render aid to Malcolm, resting his head on her lap. A photograph taken by Life magazine depicts this moment.
Black nationalist activism Beginning in 1964, Kochiyama began to affiliate with the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), a Maoist organization founded in Ohio by members of several activist groups. The organization's tenets included revolutionary nationalism and self-defense. While she never formally joined the organization, she did provide support for its work in Harlem, with civil rights activist Muhammad Ahmad (also known as Max Stanford) identifying her as a pivotal figure in the establishment of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in Harlem. Beginning in 1966, the FBI began monitoring her activities, describing her as a Black nationalist "ring leader" and potential "Red Chinese agent".
After the mass arrest of 17 RAM members in 1967, Kochiyama joined the Republic of New Afrika (RNA), a Black separatist organization that claimed five states in the Southern United States as the territory for a new Black nation. She took an oath of citizenship to the RNA on September 13, 1969, and, in accordance with the practice adopted by many Black activists of adopting Muslim names, she began to go by her Japanese name, Yuri. After attending the organization's Brooklyn Consulate, she also began to take classes on various aspects of revolutionary life with the RNA and acted as the organization's "communication person" in Harlem.
Support for political prisoners