#mumia abu-jamal
“This system wants Fred Hampton’s tale to remain untold, his militant memory to fade, his life of service to black folks and the black revolutionary struggle to pass unknown. The media has covered up this recent history, but some remember; perhaps now you will too.
Remember those who have gone before.
Remember those whom the system wants you to forget.
Remember those who fought against this system.
Remember Chairman Fred Hampton, and his assassins!”
-Mumia Abu-Jamal,All Things Censored(2001).
I first met Yuri as a freshman in college. Many of us were making our way into a crowded bus, holding signs, headed to a Mumia Abu Jamal rally in Philadelphia. As a bright eyed, angst-riddled, curious girl, trying to make sense of the frenetic energy and an environment that felt as though it was about to swallow me up, I felt a bit lost, disconnected…alone. At that moment, I felt a hand on my elbow, gently steering me to the side, ‘You’re new, I don’t think we’ve met’. Yuri’s voice immediately soothed me. It was as though she could see right past my doubts, my questions. ‘It’s a bit crazy, but we’re all friends here.’ Holding her blow horn, Yuri helped steer everyone in the right direction, but still kept me at her side. During that bus ride, we swapped stories - she asked me about my family and how a girl from Hawaii ended up in Western Massachusetts. I asked her if she was a professor because she seemed to know everyone on that bus. She gave me a cookie. We laughed. Sang songs. Ate more cookies. In those hours, while it was clear that I had so much to learn about the movements that brought us together that day, in Yuri’s magical way, she began to show me how compassion is at the center of change. By the end, I no longer felt alone, but a part of something larger. I was inspired, moved….touched. Thank you, Yuri, for that memory, for your wisdom since then, for your kindness, and for always remembering our bus ride together. You steered me in the direction I needed to move towards that day…and your memory continues to do the same today. Rest in peace.
Eloise Lee Harris is a wife, daughter and new mom based in Hawaii, and professionally, a communications strategist specializing in conservation and climate change issues.
Yuri spent a good portion of her young adult life in a concentration camp of Japanese people in the US. From this foundational experience emerged a solid revolutionary force of nature. While we all remember her work with Malcolm X, she should be remembered also (and perhaps, more visibly) as a participant in actions such as taking over the Statue of Liberty with Puerto Rican independence activists. Her commitment to active participation in anti-imperialist and national liberation movements the world over was her life’s work - and it went on for decades after Malcolm X’s murder.
She was pivotal in the movements to free Mumia Abu Jamal and other political prisoners and end nuclear proliferation. She has been a consistent friend of the oppressed peoples of the world. She has prominently defended the revolutions in the Philippines, Peru, and elsewhere. Despite the very small active base of Japanese-Americans involved in struggle for national liberation, Yuri is an important figure and worker for liberation precisely because while jettisoned by the persecution and internment of her own family and community, she actively took up the struggle of the world’s majority. Her relationship to national liberation organizations fighting for self-determination, as a working active figure, sets her as a giant on whose shoulders we all stand.
Evaristo Marrero, maosoleum an organ of the Liaison Committee for a New Communist Party
