Her accomplishments and continuing involvement offer a unique view of past struggles in human rights and an inspiring glimpse at possibilities for the future. A Japanese American activist whose early political awakenings came while incarcerated in the concentration camps of World War II America, Kochiyama dedicated her. Through interviews, writings, music and archival footage, this film captures the extraordinary vitality and compassion of Yuri Kochiyama as a Harlem-based activist, wife, mother of six children, educator and humanitarian. This event kindled her close friendship with Malcolm X that would endure until his death. Not Just A Black Thing: An Asian-Americans Bond With Malcolm X. Detained as a Japanese American and sent to a concentration camp during World War II, she would emerge as a well-recognized freedom fighter and community organizer whose work spanned the latter half of the 20th century and continued into the 21st. A typical yet significant example was when she initiated a meeting between Malcolm X and the Hiroshima Nagasaki Peace Study Mission from Japan. Yuri Kochiyamas story is American history. Her parents settled on the West Coast where her family owned a food store that supplied food to the US Navy off the Pacific shores. She was a cornerstone in the Black Power and Asian American liberation movements alike, and was a fierce voice for a range of global civil rights efforts until her death. Illustrated by Anastasia Magloire Williams. Through the astonishing breadth of her activities, Kochiyama has united people who otherwise might not have met. Yuri Kochiyama was born in 1921 in California after her immigrant parents came into America and settled (Jennings, 1994, 23). She has been involved with worldwide nuclear disarmament, the Japanese American Redress and Reparations Movement and the International Political Prisoner Rights Movement. A follower and friend of Malcolm X and a supporter of Black Liberation, Kochiyama was at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem when Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. Yuri Kochiyama’s story begins with her internment as a young woman during World War II and her gradual political awakening. This documentary chronicles the history of this remarkable woman’s contribution to social change through some of the most significant events of the 20th century.

Kochiyama fought alongside Malcolm X in the pursuit for Black nationalism, and also successfully campaigned for reparations for interned Japanese-Americans. After her internment during WW2, she pursued social justice for all communities of color.

For over 40 years, the work of this tireless and inspiring political activist has touched thousands of lives in diverse communities across the United States. Yuri Kochiyama was a supporter of the terrorist group Shining Path Graffiti in Lima, Peru, calls for the freeing of Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán. Yuri Kochiyama was a Japanese-American community organizer.

Yuri kochiyama