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From Internment Camps in the U.S. to the Assassination of Malcolm X and Beyond

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.

• Yuri Kochiyama, longtime civil rights activist, interned at a U.S. concentration camp during World War II, friend of Malcolm X and with him as he died. Yuri Kochiyama is the author of "Passing It On", a memoir.

AMY GOODMAN: I got a chance to interview Yuri Kochiyama in the studios of Link TV just a few weeks ago. She began by talking about this day, 41 years ago, the day Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York.

YURI KOCHIYAMA: The date was February 21. It was a Sunday. Well, prior to that date, I think that whole week there was a lot of rumors going on in Harlem that something might happen to Malcolm. But I think Malcolm showed all along, especially around that time, that there were rumors going on. He was aware, because there were things even in the newspaper, that there was some, I think – I don’t know if it was a misunderstanding or just disagreeing about some things that Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm were talking about. They were personal things. But Malcolm was aware that Elijah seemed to be feeling a little – what would be – oh, I’m so sorry that I’m messing this up – but on some very personal issues, there was disagreement between Elijah and Malcolm, and I think there was even talk that was going on, and after the assassination, however, many black people felt it could have been by people who had infiltrated or that the police department and F.B.I. may have actually planted in the Nation of Islam.

AMY GOODMAN: Describe that day. Malcolm came out on the stage, but first he was by someone else. You were sitting in the audience? Where were you?

YURI KOCHIYAMA: No. He was sitting in the little room right next to the stage. And Brother Benjamin was doing the speaking. But everyone noticed that even the guards seemed a little upset, and it was because they said that those who were invited to speak that day, that none of them showed up. And, of course, the crowd in there, about 400 people, realizing something was amiss, did feel that something was going wrong.

AMY GOODMAN: You mean that speakers were invited who didn’t show?

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: Where were you sitting?

YURI KOCHIYAMA: I think about the tenth – equivalent to about the tenth row from the podium and almost right across – well, in the middle, where the two guys got up and said – one of them yelled, “Take your hands out of my pocket!” When everybody started just looking at them, the two guys. They were, like, fighting.

AMY GOODMAN: They had stood up as Malcolm X was speaking, very close to the beginning of his speech.

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Yes, he was just going to speak. And Malcolm just said, “Okay, brothers, let’s just break it up.” But what happened was, it seemed to suck in all his guards closer to what was happening. And then –

AMY GOODMAN: A kind of diversion.

YURI KOCHIYAMA: The diversion, right. Everybody was looking there. When – because we were all watching the two guys in the audience, and everybody was watching, and the guards themselves moved from their post. They’re supposed to be protecting Malcolm. Well, Malcolm first said, “Okay, now, let’s break it up.” But because Malcolm had left the podium, he was just a perfect target to be shot. And I don’t know if it was two or three men, right in front, went up and started shooting. Well, by that time, the whole place was chaotic. I mean, people were chasing – some of them chasing after those two guys, and people were yelling and screaming and others – because they let women and children in at the very end, the decision. The kids were – could be crying or just running to get near their mother, and mothers were trying to shield the kids. And I guess the two guys who did the – what was the word you said?

AMY GOODMAN: The diversion?

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Diversion. They shot a few times, you know, not to hit anyone, but just, I think, to make the place look even more chaotic there. And Malcolm had told his men, especially the very close Muslims, not to bring any arms, that they didn’t want to frighten the women and children. And so, no one was supposed to bring anything, but one Muslim, and I think thank goodness that one did have a gun, and he’s the only one that shot one of the people who came to assassinate. If he wasn’t there with a gun, I think they would have all fled. And then, anyway, you know the three men who were charged, none of them were even there, and they proved it at the end.

AMY GOODMAN: So when Malcolm was shot and he was laying on the stage, you ran up?

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Yes. Because I saw a young brother pass me, and he seemed to know just where to go or how to get up on the stage. And he acted just like -- what do you call it? You call it, not a guard. Well, like one of Malcolm's security anyway. And he went up, and I followed him. And he went to the back, and he pulled the curtains to see if there was anyone in the back. And at that time, I mean, Malcolm had fallen straight back, and he was on his back, lying on the floor. And so I just went there and picked up his head and just put it on my lap. People ask, “What did he say?” He didn't say anything. He was just having a difficult time breathing.

AMY GOODMAN: What did you say to him?

YURI KOCHIYAMA: I said, “Please, Malcolm, please, Malcolm, stay alive.” But he was hit so many times. Then a lot of people came on stage. They tore his shirt so they could see how many times he was hit. People said it was like about 13 times. I mean, the most visible is the one here on his chin. He was hit somewhere else in the face, and then he was just peppered all over on his chest.

AMY GOODMAN: Betty, his wife Betty Shabazz, was there with the children.

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Yes. At the very end, he called her. He had told her before not to come, because he was afraid something was going to happen. Then at the end, he changed his mind and called her and said, “Come, right away. They are almost starting.” And he said, “Please bring the children. There's nothing to worry about.” And so, she brought them. They had four children, and she was pregnant. And, you know, shortly after, she had two more.

AMY GOODMAN: She also came up on the stage, as Malcolm lay there dying?

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did you do then?

YURI KOCHIYAMA: When someone told me to go to the side room, and they handed me, you know, a milk bottle and the youngest child, and so they just said, “Feed the baby.” Betty was right there with Malcolm.

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Oh, I’ll never forget that day. I mean, it was unexpected. Even though Malcolm could show up anywhere, you know, at any time and wherever his people are. And, well, all of a sudden, someone walked into the foyer, the first floor of the courthouse in Brooklyn. And all of the young kids -- they were all black -- they were all running downstairs to the foyer, and here was Malcolm coming in through the front door. No guards. He was there just by himself. I was quite surprised, because it was a dangerous time for him. And all of the kids, they were maybe between 17 and 25, and they such energetic kids who -- they really, like, mobbed him with admiration. Everybody wanted to shake his hands.

And as I watched, about 25 yards away, I felt so bad that I wasn’t black, that this should be just a black thing. But the more I see them all so happily shaking his hands and Malcolm so happy, I said “Gosh darn it, I'm going to try to meet him somehow.” And so, I kept getting closer, and I said, “If he looks up once, I'm going to run over there and see if I could shake his hand.” And so, that's what I did.

There was a time where -- maybe he didn't look up, but I may have just thought he did or wished he did. And so, then I yelled and said "Malcolm, can I shake your hands, too?" because all these young people were. And he said "What for?" And I didn't know at first what to say. “What for?” I said, "Because what you’re doing for your people." And he said, "And what am I doing for my people?" Now, I thought, “What would I say to that?” And so I said, "You are giving directions." And then, he just changed and said -- he came out of the center of that, you know, where everybody was there, came out and he stuck his hands out. So I ran and grabbed it. I couldn't believe that I was shaking Malcolm X's hand. And I was just so sorry that my son, who was 16, who wanted to come so much, but he had an exam in high school and he didn't think he could miss that exam, so he missed seeing Malcolm then. He met him later.

AMY GOODMAN: You were there because people -- you were among hundreds who were arrested, protesting for jobs for Puerto Rican and black construction workers?

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: So that started your relationship with Malcolm X. It was just really a month before John F. Kennedy was assassinated -- would be assassinated in Dallas. October 16, 1963 --

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: -- was the day that you met him.

YURI KOCHIYAMA: Right. October 16 is when I met Malcolm. And –

AMY GOODMAN: And JFK was killed on November 22.

YURI KOCHIYAMA: He was killed – yeah, John Kennedy was killed on November 22.




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