It was 41 years ago today when Malcolm X was gunned down in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. Yuri Kochiyama cradled his head as he lay dying on the stage. Kochiyama’s activism began after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when she and her family were held in an internment camp along with more than 100,000 Japanese in the United States. [includes rush transcript]
Forty-one years ago today–on February 21, 1965–Malcolm X was shot dead as he spoke at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. He had just taken the stage when shots rang out riddling his body with bullets. He was 39 years old.
Malcolm X’s friend, activist Yuri Kochiyama was in the Audubon Ballroom the day he was assassinated. After he was shot, she rushed to the stage and cradled Malcolm’s head in her arms as he lay dying. Today we’ll hear Yuri Kochiyama talk about that fateful day and speak with the longtime activist about her life.
For over sixty years, Yuri Kochiyama has championed civil rights, protested racial inequality and fought for causes of social justice. Her story begins during World War II. On the day of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Yuri’s father was arrested. Her parents were then forcibly removed from their home by the U.S. government and held in an internment camp along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans. While at a camp in Arkansas, Yuri came face-to-face with the segregation of the Jim Crow south. She immediately saw the parallels between the oppression of Black people and the treatment of Japanese Americans. In 1960, Yuri and her husband Bill Kochiyama moved into a housing project in Harlem. Yuri became involved in the Civil Rights Movement and was part of the major struggles of the 1960s and 70’s. She especially supported the Black liberation struggle and the work of the Black Panther party. In 1977, she took part in the takeover of the Statue of Liberty to bring attention to the struggle for Puerto Rican independence. In the 1980s, she and her husband led the successful fight to gain reparations for people of Japanese descent who were imprisoned during World War II.
