An iconic figure of the Asian American movement, Richard Aoki (1938–2009) was also, as the most prominent non-Black member of the Black Panther Party, a key architect of Afro-Asian solidarity in the 1960s and ’70s. His life story exposes the personal side of political activism as it illuminates the history of ethnic nationalism and radical internationalism in America.

A reflection of this interconnection, Samurai among Panthers weaves together two narratives: Aoki’s dramatic first-person chronicle and an interpretive history by a leading scholar of the Asian American movement, Diane C. Fujino. Aoki’s candid account of himself takes us from his early years in Japanese American internment camps to his political education on the streets of Oakland, to his emergence in the Black Panther Party. As his story unfolds, we see how his parents’ separation inside the camps and his father’s illegal activities shaped the development of Aoki’s politics. Fujino situates his life within the context of twentieth-century history—World War II, the Cold War, and the protests of the 1960s. She demonstrates how activism is both an accidental and an intentional endeavor and how a militant activist practice can also promote participatory democracy and social service.

The result of these parallel voices and analysis in Samurai among Panthers is a complex—and sometimes contradictory—portrait of a singularly extraordinary activist and an expansion and deepening of our understanding of the history he lived.

$24.95 paper ISBN 978-0-8166-7787-0
$75.00 cloth ISBN 978-0-8166-7786-3
496 pages, 27 b&w plates, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, April 2012

UMP blog - Remembering Richard Aoki (Nov. 20, 1938 - March 15, 2009)

It’s been three years since Richard Aoki passed away. I was in Berkeley, California, that weekend in March 2009 celebrating the 40th anniversaries of UC Berkeley’s Third World Liberation Front strike and the formation of the Asian American Political Alliance. Richard was perhaps the most prominent Asian American organizer of the Third World strike that gained ethnic studies, a leader of the early Asian American Movement, and the highest ranking non-Black in the Black Panther Party (BPP). Richard’s presence filled the various rooms, with talk of his “bad ass” militancy and courage, of his exploits against the police, and of his Black oratory style. But I also remember Richard’s vulnerability. That weekend, he was a few miles away in a hospital, struggling with kidney failure, heart problems, and other complications. On March 15, 2009, I was sitting in the San Francisco airport awaiting my flight home when I received the phone call that Richard had died at the age of 70.

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