Richard Aoki, the Japanese American Black Panther: A Fascinating, Inspiring Life Story
By
Martha Nakagawa
Rafu Shimpo
August 01, 2012
“Samurai Among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life” by Diane C. Fujino is no conventional biography.
Aoki was the most prominent non-African American member of the Black Panther Party, and his biography is fascinating, educational, inspiring — in short, hard to put down.
One of the best things Fujino chose to do was scrap the traditional biography format where the story is written in third person. Instead, Fujino uses narratives from Aoki’s oral history interviews, allowing him to tell his story in his own colorful language.