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
Kick off your Fourth of July festivities with our myth-busting video about the Statue of Liberty, the iconic symbol of freedom and democracy at the heart of Elizabeth Mitchell’s fascinating new book, LIBERTY’S TORCH.
Statue of Liberty on Lake Mendota, Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin.
The Statue of Liberty was built on Lake Mendota in February 1979 by the Pail and Shovel Party, which had gained control of the Wisconsin Student Association in the spring of 1978. The original statue was torched by an unknown arsonist ten days after it had been constructed. A new, improved statue was erected in February of 1980. That statue was rescued from a barn near Richland Center in the mid 1990s, and Hoofers helped restore it and used it in their Winter Carnival in 1996. The statue currently belongs to Dane County.
via:UW-Madison Collection, University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives and University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
Model: Jessica Lee Wardrobe: Jessica Lee & Mean Little Skulls Photography/Edit/Accessories/Jewelry/Hair & Makeup: Mean Little Skulls Epic helpers: Dave Lee & Dr. Klaiber
